


Sorry About the Arm Thing

by prettycoolducks



Category: HLVRAI-Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Benrey apologizes. Benrey is very bad at apologizing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, I use the word slow burn lightly, Its just like every other post canon fic but MY version (:, Multi, Not A Game AU, Not tagging gordon bc the tags aren't seperated yet /:, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, T for swearing, the enemies part ends very quickly lol, this is my first work so idk how to tag things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettycoolducks/pseuds/prettycoolducks
Summary: “heyimreallysorryaboutgettingyourarmcutoffthatonetimeandalsotryingtokilleverybodyididntreaywanttodoitbutwhateverokBYE”…Wait, what?——Benrey realizes that the pit in his stomach every time he thinks about Gordon is guilt. Benrey has to apologize. Benrey is not very good at apologizing.(A one shot turned multi chapter fic following the post canon shenanigans of the science team + Benrey)
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman, Bubby/Dr. Coomer (Half-Life)
Comments: 78
Kudos: 503





	1. Benrey Apologizes

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hiii this is the first fic I've ever written. This is no joke I've literally never written fanfic for anything before. Anyway I wrote this in my notes app to avoid homework and I did not expect it to get this long or spend the rest of my night polishing it so I could post it. If you read this you are soo so cool and also I might just add another chapter because I had a lot of fun writing this, so feel free to stick around! Comments and critique are greatly appreciated as I haven't written anything other than essays in like a year so I'm still getting back into the groove of writing stuff for fun!

It was 5pm, and Gordon was making dinner. It wasn’t anything special, just some pasta. He made sure to make a lot, because the science team was coming over later, and when the science team ate, they were ravenous. Like, obnoxiously so. He’d had more than one talk with them about dinner table etiquette, but alas, the members of the science team were never fond of rules.

For this particular dinner, he was more nervous than usual. Sure, the science team had dinner with him every week, and he had already cleared any and all easily breakable objects out of the way in case of any impromptu wrestling matches Dr. Coomer instigated. He’d stocked up on soda. Hell, he’d even bought a new fire extinguisher! He’s pretty sure he had one in just about every room of the house at this point, and he used them up surprisingly fast. If he had a penny for every time Bubby had started a fire in his house, he’d have at least 2. Which wasn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it had happened more than once!

No, the thing that had him really nervous for this particular dinner was that there was a new member joining this time, and it wasn’t Darnold. He’d actually joined a few times in the past, nice guy. The new member this time was Benrey. 

He’d actually showed up about a week ago. In his neighbor’s trash can. He’d been taking the trash out at around 2pm (he refused to take the trash out after it was dark out), when he heard a rustling across the alley way. Knowing what kind of horrors he’d faced in Black Mesa, he was really hoping it was just a raccoon and not like, a headcrab or something. The one thing he did not expect was to find a full grown man, wearing a security vest and obviously stuck in the trash.

“Oh hey. What’s up?”

Gordon had screamed louder than he’d like to admit.

Anyway, Benrey had since moved in with Tommy, because there was no way he was going to let Benrey within 10 feet of him ever again. Except he was. Because he was coming over for dinner. With the science team. He hadn’t wanted to invite him of course, but Tommy asked really nicely and, well, you can’t say no to Tommy.

So here he was. Making dinner for the science team AND Benrey. He pulled himself out of his self hating thoughts for being such a doormat to Tommy to start heating up the sauce. He was grabbing the jar of sauce from his fridge when he heard a fizzing sound and a pop! behind him. He turned around, immediately realizing who it was. Benrey started speaking before Gordon could even scream at being unnecessarily jump scared.

“heyimreallysorryaboutgettingyourarmcutoffthatonetimeandalsotryingtokilleverybodyididntreaywanttodoitbutwhateverokBYE” 

…

Wait, what?

Benrey disappeared with another pop! leaving Gordon to wonder what the hell just happened. He couldn’t quite understand what Benrey had said to him. He talked way too fast for Gordon to catch on to his words. Oh well, he supposed he could ask him later. 

In his confusion, he hadn’t noticed that he’d dropped the jar of sauce. He looked down at his feet to see red sauce splattered all over the floor, as well as plenty of broken glass.

“Oh goddamn it!” He groaned and pulled his hands down his face. He guessed this spaghetti was going to have to be more of an Alfredo.

——————————

Later, once the science team had arrived, Gordon was trying to mentally prepare himself for having a conversation with Benrey. He probably could have let it go and not asked about it (most of what Benrey said to him was gibberish anyway), but he was curious, and Benrey wouldn’t stop fidgeting and looking in his direction either. It was getting annoying. Just as he was thinking this, Benrey did it again.

He sighed. “What,” He spit out.

“Huh? What, what?”

Gordon sighed, again, louder, and pinched the bridge of his nose. The ‘huh? What?’ routine had gotten old a long time ago. “You keep looking at me like you want something. What do you need?”

“Ummm,” Benrey smacked his lips, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why do you keep looking at me, huh? Got a crush or something?” 

Gordon just gave him a look and went back to his dinner. He didn’t know why he tried. It just made the awkward atmosphere worse. The rest of the science team definitely caught on to the weird atmosphere too. He could tell. Tommy kept glancing between the two nervously, and Dr. Coomer had an odd look in his eyes, like he was planning something. Bubby had an annoyed scowl on his face, but when didn’t he? Gordon was pretty sure that was just his resting face.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Dr. Coomer spoke at way too loud of a volume for Gordon’s small-ish apartment. “WELL GENTLEMEN THIS WAS A FINE MEAL! I‘M GOING TO CLEAN MY DISHES NOW!”

Gordon winced at the volume but tried to respond. “Wait it’s ok I’ll do-“ but Dr. Coomer had already left, and so had Tommy, following him out but sparing one last anxious look back at Gordon before he left. Bubby seemed to have noticed the tense atmosphere too, because he stood up immediately after.

“Gordon, this meal was adequate.” He stated, nodding to Gordon before following Tommy and Dr. Coomer out. Gordon all but reached his hand out and begged him to stay so he wouldn’t be left in the room with Benrey, but he was already gone. Speaking of, looking back at Benrey, he was sitting perfectly proper, as he always did, and still sparing awkward glances in Gordon’s direction.

Gordon sighed loudly for probably the fourth time this evening. He guessed now would be as good of a time as any to ask. “Hey, Benrey.” Benrey looked back at him nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t been glancing at him the whole dinner.

“Huh? Yeah?”

“I- what did you say to me earlier? When you teleported into my apartment? Y’know, scaring the shit out of me and making me drop the pasta sauce?”

Benrey looked briefly startled, as if he had been caught, before looking away again. “IIIIII don’t know what you’re talking about. You hallucinating things or something?”

“Benrey, no. You like, teleported into my apartment and said something really fast and I couldn’t understand what you said. Y’know, like, teleportation with the whole-“ he mimicked the fizzy pop sound he heard when Benrey teleported earlier. He gives Benrey a ‘you know’ look. “Could you just like, tell me what you said earlier but, y’know, slower? So I can understand what you said?”

Benrey looked much more nervous now. If whatever alien/eldritch abomination/thing he was could sweat, he would definitely be sweating bullets right now. He couldn’t ’huh? What?’ himself out of this one. Benrey resigned to his fate and finally spoke. “I was trying to apologize.” He said. He trailed off as he spoke so the second half of the sentence was incomprehensible.

“What?”

Benrey huffed and tried again. “I was trying to apologize.” Again, the end of the sentence was barely audible. Gordon still couldn’t tell what he was saying.

“Look, you gotta speak up, man,” Gordon responded.

“I said sorry, okay!” Benrey looked very out of his element, and he now refused to make eye contact with Gordon at all, mumbling under his breath and crossing his arms. And Gordon thought Bubby was bad at apologizing.

“Wait. Really?” Gordon was honestly shocked. Benrey didn’t seem at all remorseful back at Black Mesa, and he had been avoiding Gordon just about as much as Gordon had been avoiding him when he got back. Out of all the unpredictable things he never expected Benrey to do, this was the last on the list.

Though as much as Gordon was shocked to hear Benrey apologize, he also saw how great an opportunity this was to make fun of him. He probably shouldn’t make fun of people for apologizing, but hey, it was Benrey, so it was probably fair. 

“Benrey, apologizing?” He made a dramatic shocked face. “I never thought I’d see the day!” He couldn’t keep himself from smiling. Benrey seemed to be affected by it too, leaving behind his tense, fearful look for a more shocked but amused look.

And though he’d love to make fun of Benrey for longer, he thought he really should at least acknowledge that he appreciated the apology. 

Benrey stuck his tongue out at him. 

Orrr he could keep making fun of him. “Do you care to elaborate on that apology? Like, how am I even supposed to know what you’re apologizing for?” Gordon obviously knew already what Benrey was apologizing for. The whole, ‘I got your arm cut off and then tried to kill the science team’ thing was pretty much the only thing he could have been apologizing for. Unless he was apologizing for making Gordon drop his spaghetti sauce earlier, which, to be fair, Gordon was still pretty miffed about.

Benrey looked back at him and, yeah, he was definitely getting annoyed. “I refuse to talk to you.” He said, and then turned his chair all the way around so he was facing completely away from Gordon, making an obnoxious noise as it dragged against the tile.

“Hey, Benrey.” Benrey made a mocking noise and held his hand out to imitate a mouth in response.

“Bud?” Benrey still didn’t respond. Gordon huffed a laugh, though it still sounded a bit like his exasperated sigh from earlier. Ok, the fun was over. He definitely did need to acknowledge the apology, and make sure Benrey actually knew what he was apologizing for. How was he to know Tommy didn’t just put him up to it, anyway?

“I’m glad you apologized for,” he made a hand motion to indicate the whole ‘everything you did in Black Mesa’ thing, even though Benrey was looking away at the moment, “but I still don’t forgive you.” Benrey looked back at him with an absolutely horrified expression.

“Bro...” he looked like he was about to cry, which, honestly, as much as Gordon hated him, was not something he wanted to witness.

“Yet.” He clarified. Hoping that was enough to keep Benrey from letting loose the waterworks. “You still did a lot to hurt me, and it’ll be,” he paused, “a long time, before I’m able to forgive you, maybe never.” At this point, Benrey looked like he was going to start crying again. Gordon hastily made adjustments to his wording. “But! I can see that you’re trying to apologize! And- and that means more than you know.”

Gordon decided to end the conversation there. If he said any more, he was sure he might start crying too. Speaking of which, Benrey was definitely crying now. Full on.

“Broooo!” He said, sniffling and hiccuping. He wiped some snot from his face. Gross. He tried to calm himself down a bit before he again turned his chair all the way back around, again making a horrible screeching noise. He sniffed again before speaking. “Hug?” Now, normally Gordon would reject this offer instantly. In fact, last time Benrey had asked for a hug, he was about 20 feet tall and also trying to kill him. But this time, he was about five foot something and sniffling and trying really hard to not start crying again, so Gordon decided to pity him.

He sighed, rolling his eyes and standing up, opening his arms for a hug. “Yeah, hug.”

Benrey practically ran over into his arms, almost tackling Gordon to the ground. He buried his face into Gordon’s shirt, and to Gordon’s dismay, immediately started crying again. Gordon did his best to comfort him, and gave the best awkward dad friend hug he could. He almost had to physically restrain himself from saying ‘pat pat’ out loud.

Once Benrey had started to calm himself down, Gordon spoke up again. “Um-,“ he coughed into his hand, still feeling very awkward about his ex-enemy crying in his arms, “what, like, caused you to apologize in the first place? Because, ha, you didn’t really seem very remorseful about your actions back then.”

There was a pause. Benre sniffed. “Tommy, you know him, I was tellin’ him about how mad you were when I came back and how you should totally just get over it and grow your arm back like, grow up y’know, hah,” he sniffed again, “but then Tommy was all like ‘human limbs don’t grow back, Benrey,’ and I was all like-“

“Wait,” Gordon interrupted, “you thought I could just, grow my arm back?” He tried to gesture with his handless arm, despite still being trapped in Benrey’s hug. Benrey stayed silent. “Oh my god,” Gordon was having multiple realizations at once. “Did you think we could all like, respawn or whatever, too?”

Benrey looked away, still not responding. “Oh my god,” Gordon repeated. He started laughing. It was more of a startled ‘what the hell’ kind of laugh, but it was still a genuine laugh. Benrey seemed surprised at his outburst, and a bit confused, but he smiled a bit too. It was obvious he didn’t know why Gordon was laughing, but at least he had the spirit. 

———————

At that, the science team decided it was a good time to return from his kitchen, with Dr. Coomer in the lead. “My oh my!” he gasped, dramatically, “Group hug, everyone!”

“Wait no no no-“ Gordon knew how deadly science team group hugs could be, seeing as they usually turned into group piles, but it was too late. Tommy looped his long arms around both of them, and then Dr. Coomer scooped all three of them up in his extendo arms.

“Ope. Hello.” Benrey said as he was suddenly being lifted a few feet in the air. Gordon couldn’t keep himself from laughing even harder than he was before.

Bubby didn’t join the hug, but he had a happier expression than usual as he leaned against the door frame into Gordon’s kitchen, so good enough.

——————————

After everyone had finished the definitely way longer than necessary group hug and settled down a bit, Gordon put on a movie. Or, well, he let Dr. Coomer pick out a movie for all of them to watch. It ended up being whatever the movie equivalent of a Wikipedia article was, which seemed to be some kind of documentary about the making of chairs. Gordon didn’t even know he had that movie.

As he sat on his couch, now surrounded by people he could almost all call his friends, he thought about the earlier apology from Benrey, and realized that, yeah, the science team was in his kitchen way longer than they needed to be for washing a couple of dishes. 

…

Actually, now that he thought about it more, he had paper plates! He knew by now not to let glass around the science team. Those bastards, they set him up, didn’t they! 

But, as annoyed as he should have been, he couldn’t bring himself to care. In fact, as he drifted off to sleep (the movie was dreadfully boring), he was actually glad. He didn’t even notice as his head dropped onto Benrey‘s shoulder as he conked out with a smile on his face.


	2. Benrey Wakes Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi, it's me again. I originally thought this was gonna be a one shot, but I had a lot of fun writing it, and ended up writing more for it for fun! This whole thing is basically just me learning to write for fun again, and I don't really have a beta reader, so if there's any mistakes that's why.  
> Anyway! This chapter is a bit of a flashback from Benrey's point of view after he wakes up for the first time after being killed. I tried to add more of the science team talking in this one, and I had a lot of fun writing it! Enjoy!
> 
> Also, heads up, I changed the name of the story.

When Benrey woke up, it was dark. Not like, void dark though, which was odd, because, by all accounts, he should have been dead. Now, Benrey had died before. A lot of times. He was no stranger to dying. Get crushed, shot, stabbed etcetera, then spend a few hours in the void only to wake up fine later. He knew the motions. Same old, same old.

But he also knew he shouldn’t have come back the last time. After all, it was the final boss battle. There was an epic boss theme, he showed his true form, all the passports were destroyed and the heroes killed him. The game was over, so why wasn’t he dead?

As he pondered all this, he began to notice more details about his predicament. First of all, it smelled awful. Not quite as bad as it had smelled back in Black Mesa, but there was something rotting in here, that was for sure. Second of all, he was stuck. Third of all, he couldn’t noclip his way out.

Okay so, he had been having his doubts about this being the void before, but it had to be. There was only one place he’d been where he couldn’t noclip, and it was the void. It may have smelled a little odd, and definitely didn’t look... voidy... enough, but it had to be, right?

Realizing this was actually the void, he relaxed a little. If that’s all it was, he could just chill here until he respawned. If he respawned this time, that is. So he did. He waited, spitting out some sweet voice here and there for entertainment as he laid there waiting to respawn. 

...

He was getting a bit bored.

If there was nothing else to do but wait, he might as well try and stretch his legs a bit. But without noclipping, getting unstuck was going to be hard. Nevertheless, he started trying to move. He wiggled his foot, shaking it around and trying to pull it free of the void’s trap. No luck. He managed to pull one of his arms free though, and started yanking at his leg in another attempt to free himself. What he ended up doing instead was making a bunch of noise.

He was nearly free, when he was suddenly snapped out of his struggle for freedom as light flooded into his eyes. And there was Gordon Freeman. Standing there gawking right back at him, looking the same as he knew him back at Black Mesa (albeit much cleaner and missing the Hev suit, instead wearing an MIT sweatshirt and pajama pants), and- yeah, yikes- screaming really, really loud.

“Oh hey. What’s up?”

—————————

Gordon ended up calling the science team, after he had stopped screaming and had plenty of calm down blue sweet voice. Once he’d gotten over the ‘oh my god you’re alive’ phase, he was almost back to the Gordon Benrey knew and loved. Expect he was still pretty pissy about the whole arm thing, which was like, just grow it back, idiot. He didn’t know why Gordon was being so petty about it.

After a few minutes of waiting, Tommy showed up in his bright yellow eyesore of a minivan. At least he was happy to see Benrey back. They exchanged hugs while Gordon pouted to the side. Benrey offered him a hug too because he looked so left out, but Gordon didn’t seem to want one, which was odd. He wondered why.

Gordon let Tommy hug him though. Rude.

———————

Benrey ended up going home with Tommy. Which was fine with him, really. To be honest, Tommy’s house wasn’t so bad. At first. It was alright for the first few days. Tommy was a great friend as always, and he even had a gaming console, even though it was an xbox (yuck).

But on the second day of staying there, the gman came back from his so called ‘business trip,’ and, boy, was he miffed. Apparently Benrey was a “undead eldritch abomination” and ”shouldn’t be alive.” Like, yeah, he knew that, why did he care again?

After Benrey and the gman had a staring contest of an intensity that could be comparable to a western standoff, Tommy had to break them up before one of them opened a rift in space time or something. Benrey stayed for a bit longer before the gman’s judgemental looks and vague threats became a bit too much.

Benrey decided he’d have to find a new place to live, and fast. He went to Tommy for suggestions. Benrey obviously suggested Gordon’s, but he was quickly shot down. ‘Quicker than a fox chasing a rabbit!’ as Tommy would say.

“I- I’m not saying he hates you, but-“ he paused, finding the right words to say as they got into his Tommy’s minivan, “I just don’t think that’s the best idea right now.”

“Mannn… Why not?” Benrey despondently replied.

Tommy just glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes as he started the car. “Arm?” He suggested.

“Arm?” Benrey responded.

“You were part of the reason his arm got cut off. He’s not gonna wanna- wanna be nice to you after that.”

“Oohhh that. Yeah, I dunno why he’s being such a piss baby about that. Like, just grow it back idiot.”

Tommy was silent for a moment.

…

“Benrey.”

“Yeah?”

“Humans can’t grow their arms back like you. He’s like a- the opposite of a lizard growing back its tail! It’s gone.”

Now it was Benrey’s turn to be silent.

Oh. His funny prank was suddenly much less funny. This was not good.

“Oh… huh,” he voiced his thoughts, “that’s- Hmm... Hmmmmmmm!” There was a very odd feeling growing in his stomach. Like he just ate a bunch of rocks or something. And he knew that feeling. He’d eaten rocks before.

Tommy stifled a laugh at his loud hmm noises, then got serious again. “Don’t- don’t worry too much! It’s- Bubby is helping him develop a prosthetic! He’ll have a new hand soon, and it’ll be-“ he paused for a moment, finding the right phrase, “it’ll be better than a hot cocoa on a winter’s eve!” He spoke, upon finding his words.

They sat in silence for the rest of the car ride. Benrey couldn’t talk. He was too busy re-evaluating his whole life. The feeling of a pit in his stomach wouldn’t go away. He hadn’t eaten any rocks lately. Why was he feeling like this?

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” he spoke, finally. They had gotten out of the car and arrived… somewhere. It looked like a house.

“O-oh! Do you need to-“

“Not like that. I’m just…” he didn’t know how to word it. “I’m just… bwehh.”

Tommy gave him a confused look. “Bweh?”

“Yeah. Bweh. Feels bad. Don’t know why.”

Tommy contemplated this for a moment before finally realizing what he was referencing. “Ohhh! Bweh! That’s probably just the crushing guilt. You’ll be fine. (:”

“Oh. Ok then.”

——————

It turned out the place they had arrived at was Bubby and Dr. Coomer’s house. It looked like a pretty stereotypical old person house, save for the scorch marks surrounding the outer shrubbery. Bubby wasn’t a very good gardener it seemed. He snickered at the image of Bubby having a fit over some shrubbery as he and Tommy approached the door.

“Knock knock!” Tommy said aloud as he knocked on the door.

It was Dr. Coomer who opened the door. His eyes widened at the sight of Benrey but he quickly regained his cheerful state. “Oh, Bubby! It seems we have company!”

“Really? You should have told me. I would have locked the door.”

“Haha! Good one, dear! Do come in!” He added, stepping aside.

“Sorry for the late notice, Dr. Coomer. It’s just, my dad came back from work and he was a bit… mad about Benrey being back,” he spared a grimace to Benrey, “So I was wondering if- if maybe he could stay here? For a bit. Until he gets his own home!”

Dr. Coomer paused for a bit. “Hmm, well, we wouldn’t want our dear friend here to be homeless, would we! Of course you can stay, Boper!” Benrey was still too distracted by his sudden revelations about Gordon’s arm to correct him about the name, so he just nodded. Tommy gave a sigh of relief at the knowledge of Benrey having a place to stay.

“Phew! Thanks a lot, Dr. Coomer. I’m sure you won’t regret it, right Benrey?”

“Huh?” He replied.

“Precisely security chief Benbo!” Dr. Coomer butted in.

———————

Dr. Coomer and Bubby’s house didn’t have a guest bedroom, so Benrey was left with the couch. It was alright, he guessed. He didn’t need to sleep anyway. The only bad things were the fact that they didn’t have a gaming console. None! Not even a shitty old person laptop or anything. Dr. Coomer offered to let Benrey play the games he had on his phone. “They’re quite riveting!” He had said. Benrey didn’t think Tetris was very riveting, but he didn’t have many other options, so it would have to do.

He was starting to get his powers back again as well. He didn’t know why they didn’t work at first. Maybe it was because the science team killed him extra dead the last time. Oh well, whatever the reason, he was just happy he could teleport and noclip again. It gave him a bit more to do than just play Tetris all day.

Both Bubby and Dr. Coomer woke up at 7am sharp. Dr. Coomer would make eggs for everyone. Benrey would discreetly pass his to Bubby. Bubby would then proceed to burn all the eggs to a crisp and coat them in hot sauce. Benrey was pretty sure even he wouldn’t eat that. Whatever floats your boat, he guessed.

Benrey still called Tommy as often as he could. He couldn’t call all the time like he wanted, though. Apparently Tommy was busy with things like his ‘job’ and stuff like that.

One day, however, while looking through Dr. Coomer’s phone, which had become his biggest pastime in his time here, he saw a contact he hadn’t noticed before. It was Gordon’s. Or at least, it probably was. Benrey didn’t know any other Gordon Freemans, so it was probably safe.

Before he pressed call though, he wondered what to say. Normally, he didn’t care what other people thought of him, but for some reason, that pit in his stomach he kept feeling when he would think about Gordon (especially his arm) kept him from pressing the call button. He dropped the phone to the couch and groaned, pulling his hands down his face. He needed advice.

He wandered his way into the kitchen, where Bubby was currently sitting at the kitchen table, doing a crossword puzzle, which Benrey noticed he was filling with curse words instead of solving the actual puzzle.

“Yooo. My dude. Bro, friend. Pal… bud…”

Bubby simply looked over the newspaper and raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you need something? Because I can guarantee you, I don’t have it.”

“No. Nooo. Well. Yea,” he paused, trying to gather his words and feelings all in one place. “Sooo Tommy told me Gordon couldn’t grow his arm back and I’ve been feeling like, major yikes. Like I feel like I just ate rocks, which, I haven’t eaten rocks in a while, so I don’t know why I feel that way. And it’s like, major sucks. Won’t go away. How do I make it go away?”

“Well,” Bubby spoke, “usually, you’d apologize.”

“Ok. How do I do that.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. I haven’t apologized for anything in my life, Benrey.”

“Oh. How do people normally apologize?” 

“Say sorry, probably? I’ll be honest, I don’t know much more than that, and I don’t really care. Sort out your own drama.”

“Hm.” This was concerning indeed. He’d have to do more research.

———————

A few days later, Dr. Coomer informed him of a get together with the science team the next day. Apparently it was at Gordon’s, which was nerve racking for Benrey. Oh god, he was going to have to apologize before then. He wasn’t sure he could stand the bad feeling the whole time he was there.

On the day of the get together, Benrey was the most antsy he’d been since, well, he didn’t know. He’d never really felt guilt before. The dinner was in about an hour. He’d tried calling Tommy for advice, and Tommy told him it was best to apologize in person. Which was extra sucks. Why could he just send him a text or something?

He tried practicing in the mirror before they left too. It was super embarrassing. He didn’t like how it made him feel vulnerable. He shouldn’t have felt this way, he was an apex predator for goodness sakes! He steeled himself up, trying to prepare himself for feeling extra bad when he apologized, until he made a revelation. He could just say it really fast! Get it over with so he wouldn’t even have time to feel bad! His plan was perfect. He didn’t even need to prepare anymore. He’d just show up, say what he needed to say, and leave before his guts even had a chance to make him feel bad.

He set his plan into motion, and teleported over to Gordon’s house immediately. Pop!

“heyimreallysorryaboutgettingyourarmcutoffthatonetimeandalsotryingtokilleverybodyididntreaywanttodoitbutwhateverokBYE”

Pop! And he was back. He didn’t get much of a chance to see Gordon’s reaction, but it looked mostly surprised. He was probably just so amazed by Benrey’s epic apology speedrunning skills that he was too shocked to look happy. Yeah, that was it. 

But then, why didn’t he feel any better? Actually that… didn’t make him feel better at all. He still felt really bad. Maybe it didn’t work? Did saying it fast make it not work? Oh man, was he gonna have to do it again? He groaned, sliding to the floor back at Bubby and Dr. Coomer’s house. Why did everything have to be so hard?

He sighed, accepting the reality that, yeah, he might have to do it again. And actually try this time. Hopefully it wouldn’t make him feel too bad. He hoped he wouldn’t cry or something. That would be cringe.


	3. Meeting the Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon has yet to get Benrey to leave, and he still has to pick up Joshua.
> 
> I wasn't planning on writing Gordon's ex or even giving her a name, but the writing just kind of led it there so... I gave her the name Wendy I guess? Unless people really like her or something she probably won't show up again lol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really surprised at all the positive feedback this is getting! Thank you all so much for the kudos and comments! I'm going to try to get some semblance of a posting schedule from here on out, so expect updates maybe once or twice a week, depending on school work and the like. Also, based on my projections, this work should end up being anywhere from 5-10 chapters, depending on how I take the story from here on out lol. And again, I don't have a beta reader, so there's bound to be mistakes here and there. And though I'd like to have time to read and revise each of my chapters to hell and back, I don't have time, so there's probably some pacing issues haha... Anyway, thanks so much for reading!
> 
> Another thing. You'll notice I changed the tags to say Benrey/Gordon, so I've decided it will happen. Eventually. I also put Dr. Coomer/Bubby but that's background.

Gordon woke with a start, and immediately noticed three things. One, he had just been fast asleep on Benrey’s shoulder. Two, Benrey was currently still sleeping on his shoulder. Three, the entire science team was crowded around the both of them. It looked like they had been waiting a while.

“WAKE UP GORDON! YOU MISSED THE MOVIE!” Dr. Coomer shouted, again much too loud for his small apartment. Seriously, what was with this guy and volume control.

Gordon toppled to the ground at the loud sound, Benrey slumping over on the couch, still asleep, seemingly not bothered by the noise. Classic science team awakening.

“Hhhh- hwuh? Guh?” He wasn’t really saying anything, just making noises. Gordon was still half asleep, ok?

“Mr- mr. Freeman! You missed the movie! We can- we can rewind it, Dr. Coomer said it was gonna be on the test. You don’t- you can’t fail the test Mr. Freeman, your grades are already bad as is,” Tommy was saying something to him. Grades? Tests? Was this some kind of nightmare? He couldn’t go through school again, it was hard enough the first time.

“My- my grades? I’m- no. No. You guys are fucking with me. Help me up.”

He reached out a hand, and Dr. Coomer kindly pulled him to his feet. “That’s right, Gordon! We were just joshing with you haha! Got you, didn’t we?”

“Yyeahhh haha. So… funny... Anyway, what time is it?” He looked at the clock, despite having just asked the others.

“It’s about 2am, my good bitch! Far past my bedtime if I do say so myself.”

“Oh my gosh. It is late. Yeah, you all should head home I guess. I’ve gotta get up early tomorrow to pick up Joshua, so, yeah. I’ve gotta go to bed too.”

“Point taken, Gordon! We will leave immediately! It is always important to get a good night's sleep! Off we go!” He turned around and started walking to the door without even saying goodbye.

“Wait, right now? Because I’m sure we could-“ Bubby was cut off as Dr. Coomer literally scooped him up and started carrying him to the door with him.

“Oh. Okay. Bye then,” he said as he was subsequently carried out the door, shutting it behind the both of them.

Tommy chuckled to himself as they left. “Wow haha. They sure are silly, huh?”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Gordon replied, then looked back at Benrey still sleeping on the couch. “So are you taking Benrey home with you, then?” 

“Oh, no Mr. Freeman. Benrey’s been staying with Dr. Coomer and Bubby. My dad doesn’t like him around much.”

“Oh… ok,” he would have wondered why the gman didn’t like Benrey so much, but then he remembered how uncomfortable he had seemed around him back at Black Mesa. “Then why didn’t he leave with them?” He asked.

“Benrey can teleport, I guess. He’ll probably leave on his own when he’s ready. But, I’ve gotta get home and feed Sunkist, Mr. Freeman, so I’ll see you later.”

“O-oh. Okay. I guess I’ll just. Yeah. See you later then Tommy.” With that, Tommy left too. Leaving just Gordon and Benrey.

Gordon really wanted to go straight to bed, but he didn’t want to leave Benrey sleeping on his couch, so he tried to wake him up.

“Hey, Benrey,” he shook his shoulder slightly, “wake up. You gotta go, dude.”

“Mweh,” was his response.

“Seriously man. Everyone else has left. I’ve gotta go to bed.” He shook his shoulder harder now.

“Bbbb…” came the response from unconscious Benrey.

Gordon sighed. The clock said 2:15 now. He was so tired.

Gordon sighed again, rubbing his eyes. He supposed he could let this be a problem for tomorrow Gordon. He hoped letting Benrey sleep here tonight wouldn’t come across as an invitation for him to stay longer, but it was becoming very clear that he wasn’t going to budge. He lumbered back into his room and passed out as soon as his head hit the pillows. Till tomorrow then. 

—————————

Tomorrow Gordon was not very happy with last nights Gordon’s decision. He should have just got it over with and made Benrey leave before he went to bed, because he knew it was going to be ten times harder to make him leave now.

He groaned to himself and smacked both his cheeks. Whatever. He could deal with it. Right now the most important thing was to get ready so he could go pick up Joshua from his ex’s house. No biggie. Just get up, tell Benrey to leave, and go pick up Joshua. Those were the only things he had to do today. He could do it.

He got up and went through the process of getting ready. Brush teeth, shower, get dressed, contemplate your life choices in the mirror. The usual. Then he finally made his way to the living room to start what was sure to be his most difficult task this morning. Getting Benrey to leave.

Benrey was still asleep when he entered the living room, curled up on the end of the couch. It didn’t look like it was too comfortable, but Benrey was passed out. Now that he had time to take a closer look, he almost looked… peaceful. Not in the same way as his usual apathetic expression. Just. Peaceful. 

He was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and some joggers. Both looked too large for him. They were probably both Tommy’s come to think of it. Another detail that Gordon happened to notice was that Benrey’s helmet seemed to have slipped off in his sleep. He had surprisingly normal hair. Just a short crop of black hair that framed his face. Gordon didn’t know what he had expected Benrey to have under his helmet, but it wasn’t that. To be completely honest, he’d thought it was going to be something weird. Like a void with a bunch of eyes or something. But somehow, this normal hair fit him better. It looked almost… cute.

What? No it didn’t. Stop that, brain. He mentally slapped himself before getting back to the task at hand, waking Benrey up. The peacefulness couldn’t last forever, anyway. He’d have to wake up at some point. He shook his shoulder a bit.

“Benrey, wake up,” he spoke softly, not wanting to startle him.

“Huh?” Benrey’s eyes squinted open up at Gordon, waking up almost immediately in comparison to last night. “Feetman? Where- where are we?”

“Oh,” he dropped the soft expression for his usual annoyed one, “Haven’t let go of the nickname yet, huh? You’re at my house. You passed out on the couch last night and I couldn’t get you to wake up.”

“Hmm…” he started to drift off again.

“No. No, get up. You’ve gotta go. You can’t stay here. I’ve got to pick up Josh later and you can’t be here.”

“Josh? Friend Josh?” He perked up a bit at that.

“No, my son Josh. You know, the one you said looked like shit?”

“Ohhh. Yeah. That one,” he stopped talking for a moment, and Gordon almost thought he was falling asleep again. Then he shot up and started walking to the door. “Come on let’s go please.”

“Um. What? You’re not coming.”

“Meet Josh? Idiot baby Josh? Let’s go please?” He had opened the door and started moving towards the parking lot, and Gordon ended up following him without even noticing where he was going.

“No I-“ he laughed at Benrey’s odd wording, “I just said you can’t go, and don’t call my son an idiot!” Despite how irritated he was, he still had to pause for giggles. Damn Benrey and his weird wording.

“Pleeeasse! I won’t even…” he thought for a moment, “I won’t even say. Bad words. Or do anything else you’re not supposed to do around babies.”

Gordon sighed. He had somehow followed Benrey all the way to his car. How did Benrey even know which car was his? “Fine! Fine. You promise you won’t cuss, kill, or do any other… weird Benrey shit. Around my child. And you won’t call him an idiot or anything like that.”

Benrey seemed satisfied now that he knew he could come too. “I pinkie promise.” He held out his pinkie for Gordon to shake, smiling smugly.

Gordon couldn’t help but laugh. Again. What was with this guy and always managing to make him laugh. It was annoying. Kind of. He chuckled, holding out his pinkie for him to shake. “Ok, ok. Pinkie promise.” They shook pinkies. The deal had been made. No going back now. 

—————————

The car ride was mostly silent. Gordon turned on some music to hopefully alleviate some of the awkward atmosphere, only for Benrey to change the channel.

“Hey, I liked that song!”

“Welllll I like this one.”

Gordon huffed, glanced at him, then flipped the channel back to what he was listening to before, only for Benrey to switch it again. It wasn’t even to the one he had picked the first time he changed it. It was some annoying country song, ugh.

“Okay. Are you doing this because you actually like the song or are you just being annoying?”

“Ummm,” he smacked his lips, “I dunno what you’re talking about. I love, um,” he squinted at the radio display, “top ten country hits.”

“You sure?” Gordon asked incredulously.

“Yyyyup.” Benrey replied, sounding definitely unsure. He only lasted a few minutes before he changed the channel again. Gordon let him this time, because anything was better than country music. 

The rest of the ride to Wendy’s house (that was his ex’s name) was quiet except for the soft music coming from the speakers, the channel changing every few minutes. Gordon wondered if Benrey had heard much music before (other than video game music, of course). This led Gordon to get onto the train of thought his brain often fell to when he thought of Benrey. Like, what was he? Where did he come from? Was it Xen? If so, how did he wind up in Black Mesa? And how and why was he here now? With Gordon, listening to bad music as they drove to pick up Gordon’s son? 

He was pulled from his spiralling thoughts as he realized they had finally reached Wendy’s house. It was in a nice suburban neighborhood fit with neatly trimmed gardening and a nicely sized driveway. Gordon couldn’t help but be a little jealous. For all the money he spent getting a PhD, Black Mesa didn’t pay that much. For now, he was stuck in his two bedroom apartment.

He turned the car off and moved to get out, stopping when he saw Benrey getting out too.

“Wait. You stay here,” he said, remembering how Wendy was. She could easily get the wrong idea if she saw him bringing a friend with him to pick up Joshua.

They were still good friends, in fact, he practically saw her as family. Really annoying family that teased him about every possible love interest. Not that he saw Benrey that way. Definitely not. Just that Wendy might. Yeah.

“What? Why?” Benrey almost looked sad.

“It’s just that- um,” he struggled, trying to find an excuse, “It's just that. Wendy can be a bit…” he tried, then sighed, giving up. There was no way to get out of this without telling Benrey the real reason, and he knew Benrey would tease him about it more than Wendy ever would if he told him why he didn’t want him to come. “Never mind. It’s fine. You can come.” He heard Benrey give a quiet “yesss” and give a fist pump. He chuckled at that as he got out of the car.

Lucky for him, it wasn’t even Wendy who came to the door. It opened before he could even knock. And he was immediately tackled into a hug by Joshua, who was more so hugging his legs than the rest of him.

“Daddy!”

He laughed, startled by the hug. “Oof. Hi bud.”

Joshua immediately started babbling about this and that. How he had slipped and scratched his knee the other day, any new drawings he’d made. You know, usual kid stuff. He took a moment to see what Benrey was doing only to see him staring wide eyed at Joshua like he’d never seen anything like him before.

“You good Benrey?” He asked, amused by the expression he was making with his usual stoic face.

“So small,” he said simply, quieter than usual.

Gordon busted out laughing, then remembered he should probably introduce Benrey and Josh to each other.

“Josh, this is Benrey. He’s a…” he paused, trying to figure out how to explain their whole… deal to Josh, “friend.” Good enough. “And Benrey. This is Josh. Obviously.”

It seemed almost as if Josh hadn’t noticed Benrey was there before, as he almost immediately hit behind Gordon’s leg. “He’s shy. He doesn’t hate you or anything, probably. Don’t worry about it.” Benrey still looked too shocked at the existence of a human so small to be worried.

At that point, Wendy came to the door from further in the house. She was tall, taller than Gordon at least, wore clunky glasses, and had dark curly hair down to her shoulders. “Hi, hi. Sorry it took me so long. I was halfway through cleaning some dishes when you got here. And I knew it was you when Joshua opened the door. Don’t worry, I don’t let him open the door to strangers,” she laughed.

“Of course,” he smiled too. They hugged in greeting and only then did she happen to notice Benrey. He was being very quiet.

“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t notice you. You are?” Benrey blinked himself out of his stupor to notice another person standing there.

“Umm. What?”

Gordon almost smacked his own forehead. He swore, if Benrey pulled the “huh what?” act on Wendy he’d- well- he’d be mad, that’s for sure.

“Your name?” She asked again.

“Oh. Benrey.”

“He’s a… work friend. He’s staying with a friend for a bit, but he wanted to meet Joshua.” ‘Work friend’ was Gordon’s code word to Wendy for anyone who had survived Black Mesa with him. They had already discussed the incident previously, or at least, as much as he was allowed to say without breaking his hush money agreement. He honestly didn’t see a point in it. It wasn’t like anyone would believe him if he told the truth anyway.

“Nice to meet you… Benrey,” she too seemed off-put by the odd name, but held out a hand for him to shake nonetheless. “Come on in,” she smiled kindly and gave a wink to Gordon as he went in. Goddamnit. He’d hoped she wouldn’t say anything. He braced himself for embarrassment to come and followed her and Benrey to the kitchen.

Joshua was already buzzing around the house gathering what toys he wanted for the week. He didn’t need to pack clothes as Gordon kept clothes for him already.

She poured them all lemonade (though Benrey politely declined his), and sat at the table across from them.

“Sooo,” she crossed her legs and made the face she made when she was about to say something she knew would embarrass Gordon, “How long have you two been together?” Gordon immediately groaned and put his face into his hands in embarrassment. This was going to be a loooonng day.


	4. McDonald's! McDonald's! McDonald's!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon is forced to buy McDonald's. They play Monopoly later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About half way through writing this chapter I watched Bill and Ted for the first time. My brain turned to goop and I couldn't write anything for like, two days. It was a good movie. Anyway, enjoy.

Benrey wasn’t much interested in whatever conversation Gordon and the lady were having. It looked like she had said something, and Gordon was embarrassed and trying to come up with excuses, futilely. It was kind of funny, but Benrey was still more interested in what the tiny Gordon was doing. He called it that because it looked kind of like Gordon, but smaller. And weird looking.

Speaking of, the child was currently running back and forth across the living room gathering various cowboy toys and throwing them in a small, also cowboy themed, backpack. Benrey quietly got up from his seat in the kitchen and approached the child cautiously, still not knowing entirely how he was supposed to act towards human children.

“What’s that?” He asked, pointing to a cowboy figurine the boy was holding. He knew of what cowboys were, of course. He’d played Red Dead Redemption, so he considered himself well educated in the area. He did wonder why a child would want a toy of it though, which is why he asked.

Josh looked scared at first, seemingly trying to get smaller as he shied away, but opened up when he saw that Benrey was interested in his cowboys. “That’s- it’s cowboy! I’ve got a- a lotta cowboys and I- I gotta get ‘em all so I can take ‘em to my dad’s.”

At that, he starts putting a few more into his backpack and counting them aloud as he puts them in. He’s saying the numbers out of order, but Benrey supposes it’s the thought that counts. Or did human children perhaps count differently than adult children? They had so many odd rules and traditions to keep track of, he didn’t often bother with the specifics, so he opted not to correct him now.

“Cowboys 3, cowboys 2, cowboys 7-“

Benrey interrupts his counting to ask another question, still wondering what the purpose of the toy cowboys are. “What umm-“ he smacks his lips, “what do the cowboys do?” Joshua’s eyes light up at that, and he immediately starts blabbering about cowboys like they were the most important thing in the world. Which they might have been, to him. Benrey was, surprisingly, very interested in what he had to say. He settled down into a sitting position and nodded intently every so often as he listened. This kid had a lot to say about cowboys.

Eventually, after Joshua had sufficiently filled Benrey in on his seemingly unlimited cowboy knowledge, Gordon came out from the kitchen and looked around the living room before his eyes settled on Joshua sitting on the floor by Benrey. “Oh! That’s where you went,” he said, referring to Benrey, “Are you ready to go, bud?” This time the question was asked referring to Joshua.

Josh looked around at his toys, still scattered around the room as he had gotten distracted talking to Benrey. “Uhh. No. But- but I was talking to Benrey and I was telllin’ him about the cowboys be- because he didn’t know and I-“ He had run over to Gordon at that point, who was now caught up in a cowboy conversation of his own it seemed. Benrey took the time to gather the rest of Joshua’s toys and put them in the backpack, quietly listening to the pleasant background noise of Joshua talking to his father.

“Mhm!” Gordon nodded along to what Joshua was saying, “ok, but- but Josh, we need to finish gathering your things so we can go, alright? We’ve gotta get home before it starts to get dark. So let’s go and- oh,” he noticed Benrey sitting by the backpack with no toys around to be seen, “Never mind. It looks like... Benrey got them for you. Uh, thanks? I guess?”

“Yeah, no problem,” he grinned, just happy to help.

—————————

Gordon was relieved when they finally left. Wendy’s teasing was, well, just teasing, but it made him think about things he’d rather ignore. He did not have feelings for Benrey, in fact, he still wasn’t over what happened in Black Mesa. Benrey hadn’t even really fully apologized for what he’d done, either. But for some reason, the mere thought of them being seen as a couple made him feel… weird. Yeah, that was one way to put it. So as soon as they left the door, he promptly shoved those thoughts into a box labeled “never open ever under any circumstances” in his brain and forgot them as soon as he got into the car.

The ride back home felt longer than the ride there. Probably because Benrey wasn’t messing with the music like he had been before, and Joshua had conked out as soon as they reached the highway, so it was quiet, leaving Gordon with his thoughts. The thoughts he didn’t want to think about. He decided it would be best to try and make conversation. The only person in the car still conscious enough to hold a conversation was Benrey, who wasn’t exactly the best conversationalist, but it was the best he had, so it’d have to work.

“Um- it’s getting close to dinner time. Any preference as to where we should stop?” It wasn’t the best conversation starter, but he honestly couldn’t think of anything else.

Benrey didn’t respond for a bit, so at first he thought he was going to have to ask again, but he spoke before he could try. “I, um- I’ve never really, gone out to any place before.”

“Oh, right. The whole, alien, Black Mesa- yeah… that.” It was odd how easy it was to forget what Benrey was. No matter how many times he told him he wasn’t human, Gordon still forgot from time to time. Or, well, he didn’t forget. It was hard to forget your teammate turned enemy growing 20 feet tall and trying to kill all your friends. But he just looked so… human. It was the little things that kept Gordon from forgetting fully. Like the fact that his eyes reflected light like a cat’s, or that his teeth were just a bit too sharp. And if you looked long enough, you’d find that his face just looked… off. Like if you’d taken human skin and stretched it over an animal’s face, but much more subtle. He opted to stop thinking about it for now. They still had to find a place to have dinner, after all.

Gordon turned a little to glance back at Joshua. He was still asleep, but he’d need to wake up soon anyway so he could eat. He reached an arm back and tapped his shoulder. “Hey, Josh. Wake up, bud.”

Josh rubbed his eyes as he slowly came to. “Hm?” He mumbled, not fully awake yet.

“We’re gonna stop some place to eat soon, what do you want?”

Josh perked up at the mention of eating out. Gordon tried to make food at home when he could, so eating out was a treat. Gordon already knew what Josh was going to say before he even opened his mouth.

“McDonald’s!”

Gordon sighed. He was not a fan of McDonald’s. Their burgers weren’t that good, and their fries lost their appeal as soon as they started to get cold. He’s pretty sure Josh only liked it so much because they had toys. “You sure? I mean, there’s always like, um, fazolis, or subway, or-“

“No, no! I want McDonald’s!” He then did what Gordon always dreaded when McDonald’s came up. He started chanting. “McDonald’s, McDonald’s, McDonald’s!”

And to Gordon’s great dismay, Benrey started chanting too. For some reason. He probably didn’t even know what he was chanting for. But here he was, doing it anyway. There was not often a reason behind any decision Benrey made, not any reason Gordon could decipher anyway.

He shot a menacing glare in Benrey’s direction.  
“Really? You too?”

“McDonald’s! McDonald’s! McDonald’s!” Came his response.

Gordon just laughed at the absurdity of the situation he’d found himself in. He couldn’t bring himself to be mad or even annoyed at Josh and Benrey’s enthusiasm. Well, he thought, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

“Ok, ok!” He giggled, “fine! We can go to McDonald’s!”

“Yeeaaahhh!” Came the cheer from Josh.

“Yesss.” Benrey quietly hissed to himself. Then, “what’s McDonald’s?”

—————————

Josh got a chicken nugget happy meal with the boy toy, though he was disappointed to find a robot toy instead of a cowboy. Gordon just got a chicken sandwich, and Benrey got a 12 piece chicken nugget box, which he promptly devoured like he hadn’t eaten in months, which, to be honest, Gordon wasn’t sure he’d seen him eat anything since his return. And the only thing he remembered him eating back in Black Mesa was soda and the occasional pigeon.

Upon arriving back at Gordon’s apartment, Joshua immediately rushed back to his room and flopped onto his bed. Then, he ran to Gordon’s room and flopped on his bed. It was customary at this point for Joshua to flop on every bed in the house when he got home. Josh dashed into the living room and threw himself onto the couch face first, then rolled onto his back and looked up at his dad.

“Can we play games now?”

Gordon glanced back at Benrey, who was still shifting on his feet awkwardly by the door, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not to leave yet. Gordon wasn’t sure if he wanted him to leave yet either. He hadn’t done anything malicious yet today, and he seemed to get along pretty well with Joshua so far. But, he had to leave at some point. Gordon was still holding onto the idea that he wanted him gone. He remembered how happy Josh was earlier with Benrey. His heart softened a bit at that. He supposed letting him stay a bit longer couldn’t hurt.

“Yeah. You know where they are,” Josh nodded excitedly and ran to his room, where the games were stored in his closet.

Benrey had sauntered into the living room at that point, and immediately shuffled over to Gordon’s PS3, which he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d used. “Woaahh bro, you didn’t tell me you had PlayStation. You got uuhhhh PS+?”

Gordon sighed. PS+ was part of the reason Benrey had done the whole, boss fight, thing. Gordon still wasn’t sure what the correlation between the two was, and no matter how many times he’d played the monologue over in his head, he could never even begin to decipher it.

“No Benrey, I don’t havePS+. I haven’t even used that thing in like, years anyway.” Benrey seemed undeterred by this development, and looked back at the PS3, then back at Gordon.

“Play games please? Can we get some uhhhhh,” he looked at the shelf to see what games there were, “Red Dead redemption? For Josh? Cowboys?”

Gordon almost laughed at the idea of letting his 5 year old son play red dead redemption, of all of the games he owned. “Pfft, no way, man. Josh is way too young for that. I mean, I have other games, but I don’t really have any, kid friendly ones. Besides, we have plenty of board games to play that are just as good.”

“Booo,” he said, though he seemed curious when Joshua brought a few game boxes in.

—————————

They ended up playing Monopoly, except Josh couldn’t focus long enough to play, and Benrey wouldn’t listen to the rules, complaining about how human rules didn’t make sense (they didn’t. Seriously, how was he supposed to memorize all these?), so they were really just playing around with the figurines in the end.

Josh was starting to get tired, so Gordon ushered him to his room to get ready for bed before he got too cranky, and tucked him in to sleep. Benrey kind of followed behind them awkwardly the whole time, but shuffled back to the living room when Gordon put Josh to bed, sensing this was a ritual he wasn’t a part of yet. He wished he was. He wished he could just skip the whole redemption arc thing and go straight back to being friends again (were they ever really friends in the first place?). But, that wouldn’t be fair, he guessed. Just another human rule he’d have to get used to.

By the time Gordon shuffled back into the living room, Benrey was sitting on the couch, fiddling with a PlayStation controller, though the console itself was still off. He knew he was supposed to leave now. It was part of the deal. He’d get to see Joshua, and then he’d leave, so Gordon could get on with his life without him. He knew, but, he didn’t want to, not yet.

“Okay,” Gordon spoke up, standing by the end of the couch, “You got to visit Joshua, and I actually let you stay for a bit longer than I should have, but you’ve gotta leave sometime, man.”

Benrey finally looked up from his controller to Gordon, giving the best puppy eyes he could. “What? Brooo, but- but I was all like, good and shit and I- Bubby and Coomer don’t even have any games, and Tommy kicked me out. It’s sooo boring, bro. I could, can I stay?” The excuses were kind of half-assed, but he really didn’t want to reveal his real reason for wanting to stay. Gordon would surely kick him out then. So he gave one last offer, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Gordon would take it. But of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

“I- no it’s… yeah, you haven’t done anything wrong. Yet. But I still don’t forgive you for all the,” he made a hand motion to stand for ‘everything,’ “And- and you can’t just- you can’t just!” He inhaled and exhaled slowly, attempting to calm himself down. Benrey was starting to feel that bad feeling in his stomach again. He’d thought that apologizing would have gotten rid of it, but seeing Gordon feel bad, especially because it was his fault, made him feel sick.

Gordon sighed and plopped down on the couch next to Benrey. “You can’t just show up one day and expect me to treat you like an old friend. Especially not after all that’s happened. And, yeah, you apologized for it but… it’s gonna be awhile before I can just be, okay with you being around. I want to be okay, I really do, but I’m not there yet. So just, for now, could you leave?” That hurt. Benrey knew why he was saying it, and he knew he probably deserved it, but it hurt nonetheless.

Benrey nodded, accepting his reality, “Yeah. I’ll um- I’ll go.” But despite saying that, he didn’t get up. And Gordon didn’t tell him to leave. They just… sat there. And it was quiet, for a bit. Then Gordon spoke up again.

“You know… I’m. Also, sorry. For how rude I was. Back then,” he paused, fiddling with a spare thread on a couch cushion, “And it’s not like you weren’t rude too, ha. But… I shot you. Before I knew you could come back. And that’s- well, I was stressed, and you weren’t helping, but, I thought I was going to kill you. I wanted you dead. And that, well, it was pretty fucked up, so, I’m sorry.” 

Oh. That- Benrey didn’t expect that. He hadn’t put much thought to Gordon’s actions at the time to be honest. He’d just thought Gordon was fucking around. Like he had been when he’d done that epic prank that had gotten Gordon’s arm cut off. But, now that he knew Gordon didn’t know that at the time. Well, it certainly put some things in perspective. He didn’t respond for a bit. He wasn’t sure what to say, so he just stayed quiet.

“Yeah, well. It’s fine, I guess. I didn’t really feel it, so…” Another silence lasted for a bit, then he started laughing. Like, full on Benrey patented cackling.

Gordon looked very confused for a moment, nervously chuckling at Benrey’s behavior. “Hehe umm, whaaaaaat are you laughing at?”

“I guess,” he paused for giggling, “I- I guess we both fucked up, huh?”

Gordon huffed one last laugh for the both of them. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Things quieted again, before Benrey stood up. “Ok. I’ll go now.”

“Oh! Like, right now?”

Benrey tilted his head in confusion. “Uhhhh, yeah. That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Hm. Yeah, I guess I did,” He glanced around, as if looking for something, before turning back to Benrey. “Say, Joshua seemed to really like having you around, and, as annoying as you can be, I prioritize Joshua’s happiness over mine, so. If you ever want to stop by again some time. I’d- Joshua would like that. Maybe send a text over first though.”

Benrey raised his eyebrows at that. Gordon was actually asking him to come back? He had already been planning schemes to somehow wiggle his way back into Gordon’s life that he hadn’t even considered that Gordon might just ask him to come back. In fact, He was so elated at the thought that he almost forgot the fact that he didn’t actually have a phone to send texts with.

“Um, I don’t have a phone, though.”

“Just use Bubby and Coomer’s?” Gordon responded.

Benrey gave a long and drawn out groan at that. “But it's so oollld and sad. We could just exchange gamertags?”

“I thought you just said that Coomer and Bubby don’t have a PlayStation.”

“I’ve got… friends,” Benrey replied, thinking of his fellow skeleton pals he often played with. He’d just borrow one of theirs. He wished he’d thought of that a few weeks ago.

“Riighht. Okay then, what your- what do they call it again- your gamertag?”

“Johnwicklover1994.” Benrey stated, matter of factly.

“Johnwicklover1994. Really?”

“What can I say, Keanu Reeves has a nice ass.” 

If Gordon had been drinking a glass of water, he would have spit it out. He immediately fell into laughter. “Keanu Reeves- he- he does not- wait! No! I am not having this conversation with you! Nope! Go now!”

Benrey was laughing too now, Gordon’s infectious laughter having gotten to him. “Okay, whatever you say, bro,” he shrugged. And with that, he teleported away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter yet ummm. If you're still sticking around, that's very cool of you! Thanks for that. Also, if you write hlvrai nsfw, kindly stay away! I do not want you here. It just makes me uncomfortable. Sorry. The rest of you, I hope you are having a wonderful... morning? by the time I'm posting this (:


	5. Gordon Gets a New Arm

Gordon regretted offering to let Benrey come back. Not that he didn’t want Benrey around, no. He’d been the one to ask him to come over, anyway. But, Benrey had been coming over a LOT. Like, even when Gordon wasn’t home. Or when Gordon was sleeping. And, to be fair, he did send messages via PlayStation beforehand. Unfortunately though, Gordon didn’t really check his PlayStation when he was out of the house. And he definitely didn’t check while he was sleeping. Alas, Benrey had not violated any rules of the agreement, so he didn’t say anything. Besides, sometimes it was nice to have someone around. Even if that someone spent all their time mocking him with no reason at all.

So here Gordon was, lying in his bedroom, listening to the faint sounds down the hall of Benrey playing his PlayStation, and he didn’t even mind that much. He’d even admit that it helped him sleep a little, and leaving the door open at night let a little light seep in, like a night light. It was comforting, and it kept Gordon from having to think back to the dreaded darkness of the room he lost his arm in… 

Gordon yanked his thoughts away from that before he fell too deep into his own pit of despair. Instead he tried to focus on the good things, like the fact that he was supposed to be getting his prosthetic soon. Like, really soon. Bubby had said it might even be ready by tomorrow. That would be nice. He’d… semi-adjusted to doing chores with one arm, but it’d be nice to get back to some semblance of what his life was like before… everything.

He wondered what it would look like. He’d asked Bubby and Coomer not to make it too high tech or anything. He didn’t want superpowers. He just wanted his arm back. He’d had his arm back, for a bit. His real arm. Not a prosthetic. Gman had given it back the day of Tommy’s birthday, but by the end of the party, it faded away as if it were never there. When he asked Gman what the hell happened he’d said “your free trial has… ended… please… like and subscribe for more.” Whatever the hell that meant. When he pushed the subject the Gman just got more and more cryptic, so he dropped it, just glad his arm was at least healed over so he wasn’t bleeding out.

He looked to his stub now. The scar would be kind of cool, if he wasn’t reminded of his friends betraying him and getting his arm cut off every time he looked at it. He sighed. It was still difficult to think about. No matter how many conversations he and Benrey had about it. No matter the fact that they were almost friends at this point. He couldn’t help but hold a bit of a grudge. Not just to Benrey, but to Bubby too. Bubby hadn’t even officially apologized, but he’d done so in his own way, like helping build Gordon’s prosthetic. Which he could be getting tomorrow.

Gordon sighed, looking to his alarm clock. 3am. Yeah. There was no way he was falling asleep at this point. Especially not with his anxious thoughts so caught up about his arm, or lack thereof, soon to be prosthetic if it all worked out. He got jittery just imagining it.

He sat up, pulling his blanket with him as he shuffled down the hall, wearing it like a cape. Benrey was on the couch still, playing a game Gordon couldn’t quite make out. He’d left his glasses on his nightstand in his room. He plopped down on the couch next to Benrey.

Benrey glanced over at him, but quickly looked back to his game. Probably didn’t want to lose his kill streak, or something. Again, Gordon couldn’t recognize the game he was playing. Benrey spoke up.

“Yoooo bro. I thought you were like, uuuuhhhh, Gordon mmSleepman… haha,” he joked, still focusing on his game. Gordon gave a quiet chuckle at that.

“What is it with you and nicknames, man. I- well- I was going to be-“ he made air quotes, though his arms were beneath the blanket and he only had one hand, so the effect was kind of lost, “‘Gordon Sleepman,’ as you put it, but I couldn’t sleep.” Benrey didn’t say anything, but he glanced over again with a curious look on his face.

“I was… thinking about my arm.”

“Oh…” Benrey said. He had a bit of a guilty look on his face, as he usually did when Gordon’s arm was brought up. He guessed he still didn’t like to think about it. He had admitted he felt bad about it.

“Not like, in a bad way. I should be getting the prosthetic soon, so I guess I’m just anxious about it.”

“Hm,” Benrey simply nodded once in understanding. Well, maybe not in understanding, more of a confirmation that he heard.

They didn’t talk much more after that, except for the occasional frustrated noises Benrey would make at the game, and Gordon’s attempts at encouragement, despite not quite knowing what was going on. Benrey seemed to notice Gordon’s squinting at the screen, because he glanced over again and spoke up.

“Uhh what’s wrong with your eyes. Face broke?” Gordon laughed a bit at that.

“Pfft. Sure, face broke. That’s one way to put it. I just left my glasses in my room and I-“ he paused, yawning, “I really don’t feel like getting them right now,” there was silence for a bit.

“I could get them,” Benrey said. 

Hm. That would be an odd act of kindness from Benrey. He didn’t trust like that. Sure, Benrey’s been a bit nicer since he came back, but he was still… Benrey. Gordon couldn’t help but feel like there was some kind of ulterior motive behind his kindness. He spoke cautiously.

“Uhhh sure, I mean, I guess you could-“ before he could even finish speaking, Benrey had paused the game and was giggling mischievously as he practically ran down the hall. Okayyyyy.

When he wandered back down the hall, he was wearing Gordon’s glasses, and he looked… well, Gordon couldn’t really tell, because Benrey was wearing his glasses.

“Brooo I was saying, uh, Gordon Sleepman- more like- more like Gordon Blindman,” he joked, holding the glasses up to his face and making weird expressions into them.

“Haha. Very funny. Can I have my glasses back please?”

Benrey seemed to consider for a moment. “Hmmmmm no.”

“What.” He deadpanned.

“Huh?” Benrey replied, acting innocent. Gordon couldn’t see, but he could swear he was making an annoying face right now. He could feel it. Benrey plopped down on the couch beside him, and got back to playing his game almost immediately.

“Bwuhh these are making my eyes hurt. Bad graphics”

“Uh. No duh? They’re not your prescription. You probably don’t even need glasses. Hence why you should give them back.” He held out his hand expectantly, further driving the point that he would like his glasses back now, please.

And either Benrey didn’t understand social cues, or he was feeling extra annoying today, because instead of handing Gordon’s glasses back, he set his right hand on top of Gordon’s left, so they were effectively holding hands. Gordon looked at their hands. Benrey looked to.

“Yooo bro! We’re holding hands!” Gordon was very ready to snatch his hand back, but the almost childlike glee on Benrey’s face held him back. It almost made Gordon a little less annoyed at him. “Gay if you.” Never mind.

“Uhh no. Gay of you. You grabbed my hand. And- and anyway, stop making those kinds of jokes.”

“Wh- you held your hand out though?”

“Yeah. So you could give me my glasses back.”

“Ohhhh. You could have just asked, bro.”

“Wh?! I did! I literally asked multiple times.” Benrey, having paused the game at this point, used his free hand to tap at his chin.

“Hm. I uh- I do not recall.”

Gordon sighed, giving up. “Whatever. You’re insufferable.”

“Yup,” came Benrey’s reply. Despite their arguing, Gordon had yet to take his hand back, and Benrey hadn’t retracted his hand either. They sat like that for a bit, until Benrey released Gordon’s hand, and Gordon looked over in confusion.

“What-“ he was interrupted by being poked in the face by a plastic object. He jerked back. “Ow!”

“Nooo hold still. I’m giving you your glasses back.”

“Oh. A little warning would be nice.”

Benrey didn’t respond, instead staying very quiet as he gently slid Gordon’s glasses onto his face. When Gordon could see again, he noticed Benrey sticking his tongue out in concentration, probably trying not to poke him in the eye again. 

Gordon tried very hard to ignore the flips his stomach did when Benrey set his glasses on his face, slightly brushing his fingers against his cheek as he did so, and he most definitely did not think about why his stomach did such flips.

They just looked at each other for a moment, Benrey’s hands still hovering beside his face, before Gordon broke the stare. He coughed into his hand awkwardly. “Um- thanks.”

Benrey quickly broke eye contact as well, unpausing his game and playing it more concentrated than before, hunched over the controller and having an intense staring match at the screen. Gordon almost chuckled at how silly he looked, but stifled his laugh in order to finally look at the game Benrey was playing. It was… Animal Crossing? Huh. He was pretty sure that game wasn’t available on PS3, and now he was even more confused at why Benrey was so concentrated on the game.

“This must be a very intense game of Animal Crossing, huh?”

Benrey was still focusing intently on the screen. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Gotta get that- uhhhhhh- kill streak bro. These fish don’t stand a chance.”

“Pfft, right.” Now that Gordon had finally gotten his glasses on, he was feeling like he should take them off again. He was finally getting tired, and he did not want a glasses imprint on his face tomorrow. Yeah. He’d do that… right.. now…

—

Plonk

Oh. There’s Gordon. Looks like he passed out on the couch again. Benrey snickered at the sight of Gordon flopped haphazardly over the arm of the couch, glasses precariously perched on the end of his nose. It didn’t look too comfortable, now that he thought about it. But, then again, what did he know? He wasn’t much experienced in sleeping. He’d only done it a few times before. Mostly since he came back from the dead the last time. It was nice, until you had to wake up. Benrey didn’t like that part. It was very sucks.

He decided he should probably move Gordon before he fell off the couch. It would be funny, but he knew humans needed sleep, and Gordon didn’t get much, so he’d pity him. Just this once.

He considered how to go about this. Should he try and carry Gordon back to his bed, or wake him up? Gordon would probably be mad at him if he woke him up, and he wasn’t sure if he trusted himself enough to carry Gordon himself. He was strong, but he was also quite a bit smaller than Gordon, and carrying him would be awkward, to say the least. He opted to just pull Gordon further up onto the couch. That way he could sleep and Benrey wouldn’t have to carry him. It was a win win.

He latched onto Gordon’s wrists and pulled him back towards the center of the couch. He ended up with Gordon leaning somewhat on his side, similarly to how he did when he fell asleep during that movie a while back. There! Perfect. Good job Benrey, you’ve done it once again.

This was great… except. Now he couldn’t move. He’d got himself stuck. He sighed. It had been a hot minute since he’d slept last. He supposed it couldn’t do any harm to take a quick nap.

He settled further into the couch, resting his head on Gordon’s head which was resting on his shoulder. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but it worked. And so he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep, drifting off to the faint sounds of Animal Crossing menu music and Gordon’s muffled snoring.

—

When Gordon awoke, there were two things he immediately realized. One: he wasn’t in his room anymore, and two: he was currently resting utop of Benrey’s still sleeping form. And his only thought was: “again?” This had to be, what, the second? Third? Time that he’d fallen asleep next to Benrey. He needed to get out of this habit.

He considered how to get himself out of this predicament. Benrey was currently hugging him like an oversized teddy bear, so it would be a bit difficult to get out without having to wake him up. He knew Benrey would make fun of him if he woke up to find them like this, even though it was almost definitely his fault he was in this position.

He delicately attempted to loosen Benrey’s hold, almost sighing in relief when Benrey’s arms dropped to his sides rather than clutching Gordon’s back like a teddy bear. Then, in a moment of great clarity, he rolled off, only to realize there was no more couch left, and promptly landed on the floor. Oof.

It was at this point that the front door slammed open much louder than it should have for… whatever time it was in the morning.

“What’s up, fuckers!” Ah. That’d be Bubby. He assumed Dr. Coomer was there as well, if the sound of the door slamming was anything to go by. Many a noise complaint did Dr. Coomer bring to his door.

“Where are they? They’re late,” Bubby spoke, as if he wasn’t the one who barged into his home at an ungodly hour of the morning. Well, actually the clock said it was 11am, but still.

Suddenly Dr. Coomer popped out from behind the couch, leaning over to view a barely awake Benrey and a Gordon laying on the floor.

“Hello Gordon! My apologies for the abrupt intrusion, but what are you doing on the floor?”

Gordon looked to the floor and his- not so comfy- carpet. “Oh you know… just, chilling. On the floor. It’s nice. You should try it sometime.”

“That sounds delightful, Gordon! I think I just might.” And then Dr. Coomer lied down on the floor next to Gordon. “Gordon, I’m uncomfortable!” He spoke in a cheery voice.

Just then Benrey seemed to have started to wake up as well. He leaned over the edge of the couch, not looking at all confused at Dr. Coomer and Gordon laying on the floor. “Oohhh yooo is this the- the new gamer rage? I gotta get in on this.” Then he rolled off the couch as well, landing with an unceremonious thump on the floor next to Gordon. “This is nice,” he said, muffled by the fact that he was lying face down on the carpet.

It was then that Bubby found his way to the living room. “What the hell are you all doing?”

“Well, Bubby dearest. Gordon was just explaining this new so-called ‘gamer trend.’ It’s all the rage right now!”

“Hmm. Sounds tempting,” he actually did consider it for a bit, “but I’ll pass. I have more important things to do, like show Gordon his new arm.” With that he pulled a brand new shiny orange prosthetic out of his satchel. It reminded Gordon a bit of the hev suit, but not so much that it would give him bad memories. Gordon immediately sat up at the sight of it.

“Wh- really? It’s ready?”

“Ready as can be, Gordon. I’ll even admit that this might just be one of my finest works yet.”

Gordon stood up and rushed over to where Bubby was standing, almost reaching his arms out in a ‘gimme gimme’ motion, though when Bubby handed the prosthetic over to him, he realized he had no clue how to use it. “Sooo how do I…”

“Just stick it on.”

“Just like,” he set it where his right arm stopped, surprised when it just latched on with no further assistance. “Oh, huh. It’s that easy.”

“Of course it is, Gordon! Bubby has many PhDs! And he’s an excellent professor!”

“Doctor.” 

“Professor!”

While Bubby and Coomer did their back and forth thing, Gordon tried opening and closing his right hand, surprised when it actually responded to his brain, rather than having a manual function. It definitely wasn’t to the same quality as his real hand. It functioned more like a mitten for right now, and he couldn’t feel things with it. He tried running it along the arm of the couch to test, but to no avail.

Bubby and Coomer had finally resolved their back and forth it seemed, as Bubby redirected his attention back to Gordon. “Now I know you said you didn’t want and… ‘enhancements,’ but I could help but add my own touch.”

“Bubby…” Gordon spoke cautiously.

“No, no! Nothing crazy.”

“No extendo arms?” Bubby shook his head. “No superstrength?” Again, Bubby shook his head. “No like, pyrotechnics or anything?” At that Bubby stopped.

“Weeellllllll,” he stretched out the ‘well’ for way to long, “just a bit. Here, I’ll show you.” He directed Gordon to snap his fingers, which Gordon did, although leaning away from his new hand and instinctively flinching as he did so.

The tip of his pointer finger dropped down on a hinge, and an almost comically sized small flame stuck out, like a lighter. He doubled over in laughter at that. “Ohh man. I thought you added something crazy. You had me thinking-“ he paused for more wheezing laughter.

“Bubby spoke while he was still laughing. “Anyway, just remember. Keep it out of water and messy foods, and umm- don’t- do anything stupid. Yeah. That sounds right.” He took a step towards the door, preparing to leave. “Well, me and Coomer have a date like,” he glanced at his watch, “right now, so we’ve gotta go.”

“Oh yeah! Of course,” he paused, “And um, Bubby? Thanks.” Gordon walked over and gave Bubby an awkward hug.

“That’s nice, but if you don’t let go of me right now I’ll set you on fire.” Gordon very quickly let go.

“Yup. Point taken. Thanks again.”

“Alas, it seems it is our time to depart! Goodbye Gordon! Goodbye Benrey!” He said to Benrey, who was still lying on the floor next to Coomer. With that, Bubby and Coomer departed, off to do whatever crazy things they considered a date.

Meanwhile, Gordon meandered over time where Benrey was still lying on the floor. “Having fun there?”

“Mhm,” Benrey nodded, “It's nice, you should try it some time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accidentally made this chapter a bit long again. I didn't mean to take this long, but I kept rewriting bits and pieces of this because I didn't like them d:


	6. Best Frinds Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this chapter like, four times and I'm still not entirely happy with it, but at some point you've just got to realize when it's time to move on to the next chapter and take what you've got lol. enjoy!

If you had told Gordon 3 months ago that, not only was his arch nemesis back from the dead, but that he now considered said arch nemesis his friend, he probably would’ve said you were crazy, or he would’ve passed out from blood loss, because he was missing a hand at the time and had other things to worry about. 3 months ago, if you had told Gordon that, not only was said arch nemesis now his friend, but he was considering letting him move in with him? Gordon would have laughed at your funny joke, because there was no way in hell that was ever happening.

Except it was, because Gordon was currently anxiously folding laundry as he waited for Benrey and Tommy to show up with Benrey’s things.

It kind of happened because something he joked on impulse. Benrey was staying late, (as he had been doing a lot lately,) playing some fps Gordon was sure he didn’t own on his PS3 at like, three in the morning. Gordon had made some kind of joke like, “You're here so often, why don’t you just move in already!” And he had laughed, because it was obvious to him at the time that that idea was so ridiculous that it was obviously a joke. 

He hadn’t expected Benrey to take it seriously. Then it set Gordon wondering. Would he really mind if Benrey moved in? Like he said, Benrey hardly ever left anyway, and he didn’t really need to sleep, so sleeping accommodations weren’t needed. And he’d been helping a lot with the chores lately (even if he complained the whole time,) and his presence didn’t set Gordon into panic mode anymore. (If anything, he’d been helping with nightmares with the sweetvoice.) Really, the only thing that would change would be making it official. The reality had hit Gordon harder than expected, so instead of brushing him off, or outright denying him, he just said, “Sure!” He tried really hard to ignore how his voice cracked as he realized how intertwined his and Benrey’s lives had become.

Opting to stop thinking about how odd and bizarre his life had become, he instead focused on folding the laundry. God, he never expected to be this happy to be able to fold laundry again. There were so many things he had taken for granted before he lost his right arm, and this was one of them. He’d been taking every chance he could to do as many chores as possible, even the ones he used to hate, just to have an excuse to make use of his prosthetic. Speaking of, said prosthetic currently resting on his right arm was awesome, to say the least. He did wish it was waterproof however. He was almost scared to eat with it on, lest a spare drop of moisture render it useless. He wasn’t going to lose his arm again. But despite it lacking the ability to be waterproof, apparently it could withstand temperatures up to 4000 kelvin, so that was nice. Leave it to Bubby to make his hand fireproof but not waterproof.

Gordon was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of a car pulling into his apartment’s parking area. “Shit. Here already?” He pulled on a jacket and headed out to the parking lot.

——

In the trunk of Tommy’s car laid one singular box.

“That’s… it?” Gordon asked, incredulously.

He didn’t know why, but for some reason, he expected Benrey to have more belongings than this. Maybe another PlayStation or something. Instead, there was one simple- though heavily repaired by duct tape- cardboard box sitting in the middle of the trunk of Tommy’s minivan, with some holes poked in the side.

“Yup!” Tommy piped up. The box moved.

“Wwwwhat- what is it?” Gordon squeaked, fearful of what he was about to allow Benrey to let into his house. The box shifted again, and made a small squeaking noise.

“It’s umm- it’s Thing.” Benrey finally spoke, as he sauntered over to the back of the car where Gordon and Tommy were.

“Excuse me?” Gordon questioned.

“It’s Thing? I said that already. Use your little baby ears and listen maybe?”

“Wh- Tommy, Tommy. What is it? Please tell me what’s in the box. I need to know, man”

“Thing!” Tommy exclaimed, as if that explained anything. 

——

Now, Gordon would have investigated the box more (he half expected it to be some kind of Xen alien Benrey had brought back to Earth with him after his death,) but he trusted Tommy’s judgement enough to decide that whatever was in that box was maybe, probably ok to let into his home. The box made another noise when Benrey set it down in his apartment. Okay, maybe he didn’t trust Tommy that much. Benrey pulled back the flaps on the box, and Gordon prepared to- what- run? Attack? He was prepared for something, that’s for sure.

But when the box’s contents were revealed, he was pleasantly surprised. Out from the box hopped a big black and white cat with medium length fur. It looked like the sort of cat a four year old would have named mittens, and, immediately upon its release, it scampered right on over to Benrey lap and plopped down, seemingly content.

Gordon voiced his surprise. “Oh,” Gordon breathed out dramatically, significantly calming down. “It’s a cat. Thank God, it’s a cat” He sat down in relief.

“No, it’s Thing. His name is thing. Say hello to Thing.” Benrey said, frowning, petting Thing as it purred in his lap.

“Right... Thing. Hi, Thing.” He waved to the cat, feeling a bit stupid.

“Hi.” Tommy also waved at Thing. “We’ve already met.”

“Yeah, figured.” He thought for a moment. “Is that… all you brought?” He asked.

“Nah. And we got Thing by the side of the road.”

“You got him like, just now?”

“Yeah,” Tommy responded.

“Ok, then.” He now wondered something else. “Wait, then why did you need Tommy to drive you here? What else did you even bring?”

“I also got… this.” He pulled out a large scrapbook, seeming out of nowhere, covered in stickers and sporting some large foam letters on the cover that said ‘best frinds forever!’ “It’s missing an E, because I ran out of Es.” Benrey stayed matter of factly. If Gordon weren’t less worried about other things, he would have wondered where the scrapbook had come from, but cartoon physics were quite common for the science team, so he didn’t question it.

“And that’s… all.”

“Yup.”

“Still doesn’t explain why you needed Tommy.”

“Can’t a guy just like, hang with his good friend… good friend Tommy.”

“That’s- ok yeah. That’s cool I guess.” It’d been a while since he’d hung out with more than one member of the science team at a time (if Benrey really counted, that is), so he wouldn’t try arguing any further. Plus, he really didn’t mind Tommy being there, really. He pushed a different subject instead. “So what’s in the scrapbook?”

“What it says. Frind book (:”

Gordon chuckled. “Frind book?” then tried to get a glimpse at it, “Am I in there?”

“Yea maybe no.” Benrey responded, cryptic as usual.

“Oh! Me! Am I in frind book?” Tommy raised his hand and waved it in the air as he said it.

“Yeaaaahh all my best- best bros are in frind book. I got… Josh. Jefferem, you guys, and um- that’s about it, but yeah.”

“Can we see?” Gordon asked.

“Yeah no? No. That’s classified information you shouldn’t be asking that.” He pulled the book back and hid it away in whatever hidden dimension he kept in his back pocket.

“But,” he had to pause for laughter, “But we’re in it! You’re saying we can’t look at pictures that we are in.”

“Yesss. That… is what I said, yes.” Thing crawled off of Benrey’s lap and started sniffing at Gordon’s shoe.

“Okay that’s- whatever! It’s whatever. I don’t even care, actually. Bleh.” He stuck his tongue out for extra measure. Thing was now licking his shoe.

“Gasp. Rude.” Benrey said gasp out loud.

“We should- we should watch a movie!” Tommy said out of nowhere.

——

The movie was fine… probably. Gordon was a bit distracted thinking about Benrey’s “frind” book. For some reason, he really wanted to know if he was in it or not. Well, actually, Benrey had said he was in it, kind of. Which made him even more curious. When would Benrey even have had time to take photos? The only times he remembered Benrey taking photos were when they blew up that giant rocket thing and when they were on Xen. Oh, and… “I got scans of your feet, bro!” He really, really hoped Benrey was joking when he said that.

“You guys can look, if you want.” Both Tommy and Gordon were surprised at Benrey speaking up. Thing looked up too, with a soft “mrr?”

“What?” Gordon asked, not quite sure what Benrey was saying.

“At the- my picture book. The frind book.” Oh, that.

“Really?” Tommy sat up, excited. Gordon would normally be annoyed at Benrey interrupting the movie, but he wasn’t really watching anyway, and he did really want to know what was in that book.

Benrey gave a “mhm” in reply, and pulled the book out, setting it on his lap as Tommy paused the movie. Right off the bat, it was both exactly what Gordon expected and the weirdest thing he’d ever seen. That seemed to be a common trend when it came to the science team. The first picture was Benrey posing beside Gordon and Bubby’s passed out bodies as the resonance cascade literally ripped through dimensions in the background. He would have wondered who took the photo, if it weren’t for Tommy speaking up.

“Oh! I took that!” Tommy piped up, pointing to what was probably his thumb in the corner of the photo.

“You…” Gordon took a deep breath, “You took a photo? While me and Bubby were literally passed out on the floor because the fucking apocalypse was happening??”

“Yeah don’t worry about it.”

“I- yeah, ok.” Gordon decided not to worry about it. The past was the past, and he’d left it behind him. It probably wasn’t the best idea to look at a scrap book documenting possibly the worst time in his life, this being the case, but Gordon was nothing if he wasn’t stubborn. Even to himself.

Flipping through the book was actually… kind of sweet? Despite the rough start, a lot of the photos after that were just… the science team. Laughing, talking, brutally murdering the military. Just normal science team activities. From an outside view it almost made the whole event look not so bad. I mean, other than the whole constant violence and death, but honestly, what was the science team without a little murder.

Benrey was listing the events as they came across them. “And that’s when Coomer got stuck in a rope. That’s also when he got stuck in a rope. And then he got… stuck in a rope again.” Gordon was starting to tune it out at this point. A lot of this book was Dr. Coomer getting stuck in ropes. He’d honestly forgotten how often that happened.

He looked back at Benrey when he heard him trail off. “And that’s when you...” he trailed off

“Ah.” Gordon examined the photograph. It was a selfie of Benrey, smiling nonchalantly and holding up a peace sign, as Gordon got dragged off by soldiers in the background, bleeding out.

Benrey seemed to notice Gordon’s expression, because he spoke up. “It ummm... seemed funnier at the time?” He phrased it as a question, as if he were unsure if it was the right thing to say. It wasn’t, but Gordon couldn’t really bring himself to care.

“Pfft,” Gordon let out a soft laugh, “you know, at this point, I can’t even bring myself to be mad about it anymore. That’s funny as shit.” It was. The sheer contrast of Benrey’s expression to what was happening in the background seemed so unreal it was almost comical. Almost.

Benrey looked surprised for a moment at Gordon’s not angry answer, then they made eye contact, and both burst out laughing. Gordon wheezing and holding his stomach, while Benrey did his patented villain cackle.

“It was,” Benrey cackled a bit more, “It was a bit funny.”

Tommy didn’t look too convinced, making a “ehh” motion with his hand, but it was easy to tell he was holding back a smile. The rest of the book viewing was fine, even more interesting than the movie, if Gordon was being honest. Once they got the “final boss” section of the book, however, there were a few snapshots of the science team running away in fear, then blank. Gordon was just glad there were no feet pics the whole time.

“Huh.” Gordon stated. Benrey gave him a confused look, Tommy as well. “It’s just… You don’t have any pictures of… after the- the end? I guess that’s what you’d call it.”

“Oh, yeah. Kinda umm- lost my camera. After you shot me to death you know.” He didn’t say it with malice. More of a ‘what happens happens’ kind of way. He shrugged. “It’s fine, I guess.”

Tommy gasped. “We should- we should take a- a new one! It would be the- the start of a new saga.”

“Oh! That’s, actually, a great idea!” He pulled out his phone and put it in selfie mode, trying and failing to hold it up so they could all fit.

“Dude. You take pictures like a middle aged man.”

“Wh- I’m only 27, man!”

“Here, let me do it!” Tommy snatched Gordon’s phone, and held it wayyy out.

“Woah. Long arm Tommy to the rescue from old man Gordon.”

“Shut up, man!” Gordon said through clenched teeth, trying his best to smile for the camera.

“Annnd, done! Perfect!” Tommy held the phone so they could all see it.

“Nice.” Benrey mumbled, holding the phone.

“Here, I’ll print it out.” Gordon got up to go print it out. Afterwards, they all picked a sticker to put around it, as well as each writing a small message next to it. Benrey, for one, looked very happy with it. He just kept staring at it, smiling. Even after Tommy left, and they all said their goodbyes, even after Gordon went to bed, Benrey was just fixated on that one picture.

“Best frinds forever.” He states, hugging the book. He’d say life was going pretty well, all things considered. Thing rubbed her head against his legs, purring. Yeah. Life was going pretty well.


	7. Halloween Special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon and Benrey go on a "date" to Spirit Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being way longer than I intended, so I split it into two chapters! Also I kinda disappeared for the whole month. School has been kicking my butt, but hopefully updates should be more evenly spaced out from here on out. I've also been reading all of the nice comments! I don't really have the time to reply to them all with the long paragraphs I would like, but just know I do read them, and they motivate me to keep writing! Thank you all!! They make me very happy and I'm amazed about the reception this fic has gotten! So thank you!!!

Halloween was just around the corner, and Gordon couldn’t say he was too excited about it. It wasn’t that he hated Halloween, but he couldn’t help but be a little jealous that Wendy had custody of Josh this time around. It was probably for the best, anyway. Her neighborhood was preferable to Gordon’s shitty apartment complex anyway. Still, he couldn’t help but think that maybe he would like the holiday more if he could spend it with Josh.

As for this year, Gordon was planning to spend his Halloween much like he had the past few years: sitting around doing nothing, setting a bowl of candy outside his door with a “take one” sign, maybe watching a scary movie or two.

…

Well, come to think of it, maybe a horror movie wouldn’t be the best idea this year, seeing as his state of mind was still a bit… off, since Black Mesa, Gordon wasn’t really sure he was ready for horror movies yet. Still, he could watch a rom-com or something. Probably better for now.

He decided to check his mail while he pondered movies to watch, heading down the steps while he thought of a good rom-com or something. He definitely didn’t have as broad a range of knowledge on rom-coms as he did horror. It’s not that he didn’t care for romance, just that those movies always felt so… awkward. Maybe that was just because it had been so long since he had been in a relationship. Although, now that he-

“HOLY SHIT!” What popped out from his mailbox was not his mail. It was, in fact, a loud blast of confetti and some fucking ridiculous Halloween jump scare item. Like something you’d find at Spirit Halloween or something. It looked kind of like a jack in the box, but… more… Halloweeny? You get the point. But what was it doing in his mailbox?

“That’s- holy- holy shit,” he paused to catch his breath, leaning a bit on his knees, “It’s a toy. It’s just a- wait. Why is there a fucking Halloween decoration in my mailbox?” He cautiously approached it, like it was going to bite him or something. “Jesus, Gordon. Get yourself together, it’s just a toy for goodness sake.” Still, with how Gordon’s life was, he couldn’t help but feel he was right to be a little cautious.

He reached out a hand to touch it. Moving closer, closer, until he was touching it and… nothing happened. He released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “Whoever put this thing in my mailbox better have some explanation. Was it Benrey? Yeah, no. Definitely Benrey.” Their relationship had definitely been improving over the past few months. Really, he’d moved in with the guy. Willingly. But it was just so easy to shift the blame to him, especially because most of the time he was right. Most of the time. 

He shifted the toy out of the way, tossing it carelessly to the ground, (He’d throw it out in a bit, he didn’t really want to look at the thing. Honestly he felt a bit ridiculous for getting so scared.) and looked to see what else was in the mail. Confetti cannon, junk mail, junk, junk, bills, and- oh! An Invitation? A purple letter, decorated with paper pumpkins and ghosts, with bold blocky letters on the front that read “You’re invited!”

“Huh…” The whole essence of the thing screamed Tommy, and he could definitely see him as the type to get excited over the holidays and such, but there was no signature he could find anywhere on the letter. Only a date, a place, and a little note at the bottom that said that the party would require costumes. Suddenly, he heard a noise behind him, jump scaring him again.

“Yo, is this like. Wow. Clown. It’s a clown.” Gordon jumped in surprise, but he managed to hold in a scream. Benrey, as per his usual self, had just teleported beside him, and was nudging the Halloween toy on the ground with his foot.

“Dude! What did I say about teleporting right behind me!”

“That it’s cool and I should do it more often?” Benrey smiled, though it looked more like he was constipated that happy. “Ohhh wassat?” He leaned over to see what Gordon was holding. Gordon would normally be a bit more frustrated that Benrey just avoided one of the many, many rules Gordon had set once he started living with him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment.

“It’s… Well, I’m not really sure to be honest. It looks like an invitation? I’m not sure what to, though.”

“Like… a cult?”

“What? No- well, maybe, actually. It doesn’t… really have any information other than the time, place, and a note that says to wear a costume? You know, what, yeah, this definitely looks like it’s for a cult.”

“Yeah, definitely a cult.” Benrey agreed, nodding wisely.

“Or… or a Halloween party. Actually,” he huffed a laugh, “Yeah it’s definitely for a Halloween party. Why would it be a cult?”

“Hmmm,” Benrey snatched the letter from him. “I dunno, man, it kinda looks like a cult to me.” He inspected it more, turning it around and looking to the back of it. “Also, what's a Halloween.”

\---

To be honest, Benrey thought this Halloween thing seemed pretty cool. You got to get dressed up and scary looking, then went house to house for free candy? It seemed like a good deal to him, especially because he had no money and Gordon didn’t buy candy very often. Something about “weight loss,” which Benrey didn’t quite get.

Unfortunately, Gordon had informed him that they were both a bit old to go trick or treating.

“I mean, I don’t even know how old you are dude, but I don’t think you could pass for a 12 year old if you tried.” Gordon informed him as they drove to the local Walmart™ to get some candy to put out.

“Nooo, no no. I totally could. Watch this” Gordon glanced over, just for a second (he was driving) and then did a double take and laughed.

“What? No that’s- you just made yourself shorter!”

“Yeah. 12 year olds are short, duh.”

“You just look like a little man.” Gordon deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

“Rude. I’m totally- STOP!” Gordon slammed on the breaks, looking around frantically as Benrey suddenly interrupted himself to yell at Gordon to stop for some reason.

“What! What? What is it?” Gordon asked, incredulously. There was nothing on the road.

“What’s that?” Benrey asked, pointing towards a large building with a big orange sign on the front. “Looks… Halloweeny.”

“The- the spirit Halloween?” Gordon paused to catch his breath. “Oh my god, man. You can’t do that to me! I thought we were going to hit something or- you can’t just yell like that!” Luckily they were on a smaller road, so no accidents happened, but still.

Benrey looked away from the big Halloween store to give Gordon a raised eyebrow. “You yell all the time though?”

“What? No I don’t!”

“You’re yelling right now, though?”

“That’s-“ Gordon sighed, calming himself down. “Yeah, that’s fair. Do you want to go to the Halloween store?”

“Yessss.”

\---

Turns out this “Spirit Halloween” wasn’t as impressive as he’d first though.

“I could totally do that.” Benrey said, pointing to a deformed… creature, thing on display.

“Uh huh, sure Benrey. I’m sure you could.”

“Uhhh, yeah. You wanna see?”

“Mmm…” Gordon considered it for a moment, jokingly, then, “yeah, no.”

“You surrre?” Benrey joked, poking Gordon in the side.

“HAhahaHaha!! Yes! I’m- i'm sure.” Gordon actually laughed out loud at that. Benrey knew he was funny, but that wasn’t even a very good joke.

“That funny?” He asked.

“No. No, it wasn’t very funny at all. Please don’t pull any alien bullshit in public. I’m just ticklish.”

“Ah.” Benrey put that away in a mental box for later, then poked Gordon again.

He giggled, like actually giggled, then immediately tried to pull a serious expression. “Stop.”

Benrey just smiled, having found another way to both annoy Gordon and make him laugh. A two for one deal. Buy one, get one half off. Hell yeah.

Eventually they made their way over to the mask section, and Benrey had a silly idea. “Ohhh check this out.” He grabbed a scary clown mask and made it kiss a ghost face mask, making exaggerated kissing noises.

“Whaaaat are you doing?”

“Um? I’m romancing the romanceable characters any % speed run? Duh?”

Gordon gave a small chuckle. “Riiight…”

“Yeahmaybeweshoulddothatsometime.” Benrey spoke too fast for Gordon to catch what he was saying.

“What?” Gordon asked, but Benrey was already running off to the next isle. He sighed. “Whatever.” He jogged to keep up with Benrey, to make sure he didn’t try to break or steal anything.

\---

They never ended up making it to Walmart™. Benrey really wanted to get a costume, and he tried on half the store before Gordon finally let him buy something so they could leave. First, he wanted to try a sexy cop costume, which Gordon quickly shut down. Then, he wanted to try on a sexy cat costume, which Gordon shut down even more quickly. It seemed Gordon just didn’t like anything sexy. Oh well. 

He ended up settling for a Beetlejuice outfit. Benrey had only seen bits and pieces of the movie, but Gordon assured him he fit the character well, so that was good enough for him.

“Does that mean you’re gonna be the… I don’t actually know any other characters from Beetlejuice…” Benrey trailed off.

“Well I guess I could be like, one of the ghosts. Easy costume.” Gordon suggested.

“C‘mon, you’re not a ghost. You’d just be dressing up as like, a guy.”

“Well, ok- there’s not many other good characters to dress up as from Beetlejuice, ok! And I’m not going to dress up as a goth little girl, so he’s like, the only other character left.”

“Bbbb lame.”

“Whatever.” Gordon rolled his eyes, but he had a smile on his face. The banter was nice, in its own way. “Maybe I could dig the HEV suit out of my closet and say I’m iron man or something.”

Benrey paused, looking up at Gordon. “You still have that?”

“Hm? Oh… yeah. I guess it’s just… you never know when you might need a big metal suit that can survive extreme radiation you know?” He paused, smiling a bit, “Plus it makes for a good last minute Halloween costume. It’s a two for one deal.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Benrey responded.

\---

Gordon was a bit apprehensive about the party. On one hand, he hadn’t been to a party in years, unless you count a man’s 37th birthday party at a Chuck E Cheese’s. On the other hand, he still wasn’t sure what the true nature of this party was. He wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t some elaborate kidnapping plan. Call him paranoid, but his missing hand said otherwise. He cringed. Yeah, not a nice thought to think about.

Nonetheless, Benrey seemed pretty dead set on going to this party, with or without him, and Gordon would rather make sure he didn’t do anything stupid than stay home (plus he didn’t want to feel left out, but he wouldn’t admit that). Gordon ended up deciding not to wear the HEV suit to the party. It was heavy, and he hadn’t quite managed to scrub that alien goo smell out of it, so he decided it was better off to do his half-assed Adam from Beetlejuice costume. He was sure no one would know who he was, but to be fair, he hardly tried anyway. Benrey, on the other hand, went all out.

“Oh my god.” Gordon stated after Benrey stepped out of the bathroom for the costume reveal. He was no longer wearing a hat, instead sporting a full head of bright green hair, as well as wearing the signature striped suit.

“I know, right? Pretty cool.” Benrey struck a pose.

“Is that- is that a wig? What? Where did you even get that?”

“Not important,” Benrey replied, already at the door. “Let’s fucking gooooo!”

Gordon just laughed. “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming, let’s go.”

\---

It seemed Gordon’s instincts were right about the invite being from Tommy. Well, he assumed. It wasn’t Tommy’s house, but it was instead a huge mansion, fit with a huge metal gate, with the letters GC on the front. He could only assume they stood for Gman Coolatta. 

Seeing as it was thrown by his friends, he could only assume that his friends would be there. He was wrong in the fact that it was not only his friends. Once they pulled through the gates into the ridiculously large driveway, it revealed the lawn full of strangers, all in strange costumes and many holding red solo cups. He wasn’t completely lost, however, as he heard Tommy greeting him and Benrey as they exited his car.

“Mr. Freeman! Mr. Benrey! Glad you could make it!” He jogged over, giving Benrey a quick hug, but pausing before hugging Gordon. “Mr. Freeman, where’s your costume?”

Gordon looked down at himself, then shrugged. “Can’t you tell? I’m… Adam, from Beetlejuice.”

“But, Mr. Freeman, He’s- he’s a ghost! You're not a ghost. You’re just a guy.”

“That’s what I said.” Benrey piped up, giving Gordon a disappointed look.

“Well- there were no other good Beetlejuice characters, okay.”

“That’s- that’s fair, I guess.” Tommy replied, finally giving Gordon a hug as well.

“So um- there’s a lot of people here. Like, a lot.” Gordon spoke up, eyes nervously flitting around the crowd. He wasn’t quite used to big crowds. Sure, his voice was loud and he talked a lot, but maybe he was just afraid of crowds because he suddenly wasn’t the loudest person in the room anymore.

“Oh, yeah. I um- I- I invited a few extra people. I hope you don’t mind!” Tommy rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly.

“Nope! No. No. That’s fine. Really.” He didn’t sound like it, but he could brave the crowds. For Tommy.

“Ohhhh! Yo! Fruit punch!” Welp, there went Benrey, off into the crowd.

“I’m gonna- gonna go greet more guests in the kitchen, so you know where to find me!” There went Tommy too, leaving Gordon alone in the big crowd to fend for himself. Oh gee. This was going to be a fun night. Very fun. Just Great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also wrote a Portal fanfic, if anyone wants to read it! *wink* *wink*  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/27224341


	8. Gman's House Blows Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo I may have forgotten to update for over a month. I have no excuse except writing is hard. I hope ya'll enjoy this update anyway! I am not planning to abandon this fic at all! I actually used this time to plan what to do next as well. There should just be a few more chapters.

Well shit. Barely one minute in and he’d already lost Benrey. He didn’t know why that was so horrible, really. It wasn’t like Benrey was going to do anything awful. He was an adult. Well, as much of an adult an ageless gamer space god could be, but still. And he didn’t go through all that character development for nothing. He was a good guy now. So Gordon had nothing to worry about. Probably.

Who was he kidding, Benrey was probably tormenting some poor party goer asking for credentials or something. And to be completely honest with himself, Gordon kind of needed something to distract him from all the noise and crowds and what not, and Benrey was very good at distracting him. It was a mutual relationship kind of thing. Gordon kept Benrey from causing chaos and ruining Tommy’s party, and Benrey kept Gordon from having a doom spiral.

Alright, Gordon. List of things you need to do. 

One, find Benrey. Shouldn’t be too hard. He said he was going to get some fruit punch, right? So he just had to find the kitchen. Wherever that was. 

Two, he guessed he could try finding the rest of the science team as well? If not to keep them from causing chaos, maybe just to catch up? It’s been a while since they were all in one place, not that that ever ended well. He was sure Gman could pay for the damages.

Three… Ok, so he actually couldn’t think of anything else, so he might as well start looking for Benrey. The kitchen couldn’t be too hard to find, right?

Something he’d underestimated about the Gman Coollatta household: it was big. Really big. Which was to be expected, he guessed. It was a mansion and all, but still. He wondered, what job did the Gman even do to get this much money? He couldn’t imagine being an all knowing space god paid this well (or at least that it didn’t pay human money), but what did he know? Apparently not much, like, ever. His PhD seldom did him well.

Another thing he hadn’t taken into consideration: Tommy invited a lot of people to this party. Like, a lot, a lot. And it was loud, so loud he couldn’t hear himself think. And people kept bumping into him, and suddenly Gman’s house felt a lot smaller, and he needed to get out right now and-

“Ah! Hello, Gordon!” 

Oh. Ok. He’d been doing it again, hadn’t he. The doom spiral thing. Thank goodness he’d run into Coomer. He didn’t know what he would have done next. Probably cry.

“Um… hello? Are you in there, Gordon? Because you have to tell me if you’re not. I’m a busy man, and I’m missing a round of flaming cup pong if you’re just going to stand there.”

Oh, Bubby and Dr. Coomer. Ok. Wait… flaming cup pong? He managed to pull himself together enough to respond, maybe forgetting his hellos in the process.

“Flaming… cup pong?”

“You heard what I said. Flaming cup pong.”

“The game is quite exhilarating, Gordon!” Coomer leaned in close, only to stage-whisper loud enough to be heard over the crowd. “Bubby and I have a bet going for who wins. Just between you and me, I’m winning.” He winked.

“Ha! You wish!” Bubby laughed, giving Coomer a well meaning punch on the arm.

“No you!” Dr. Coomer then proceeded to punch Bubby hard enough that he nearly flew halfway across the room. Well that was a wake up call if Gordon ever needed one. He was only slightly concerned at how little attention the crowd paid to this. Such is a day in the life of Gordon.

He barked a laugh. “Ha! Right. Ok, well, sounds fun. Say, do you guys happen to know where the kitchen is? Or like, where Benrey or Tommy are?” At this point, Benrey had probably moved on from getting punch, but it wouldn’t hurt to find where the kitchen is anyway.

Bubby pulled himself off the ground and dusted himself off a bit, seemingly unphased by being thrown halfway across the room. “Gordon, I’m not really sure this guy has a kitchen. The closest I’ve seen was the bar in the basement.”

“Was there punch there?” Gordon asked.

“Of course Gordon! Punches fly left and right whenever I’m around!”

Gordon dodged a punch by Dr. Coomer. “Um! I mean more of the… drink variety.”

“Oh…” he sounded almost disappointed, but continued, “Well Gordon, I’m sure I saw some people heading out with some drinks from the double basement.”

The what. “The what?” Seriously. This guy had a double basement but not a kitchen? Who even needed that?

“You heard the man. The double basement! You better head there soon if you’re looking for punch, though. I heard some guy was hogging the whole bowl,” Bubby scoffed. Well, that’d probably be Benrey, then.

“Really? Well I’d better get going then. You guys have fun with your um… flaming cup pong game.”

“Flaming cup pong is no game, Gordon! There’s serious risks involved! But we will have fun!” Dr. Coomer smiled.

And so they parted ways, and Gordon was off to… the double basement. Still getting over that.

—-

Benrey was quickly finding out that this party wasn’t all it was talked up to be. It was loud, there were a ton of people, and they kept stealing Tommy’s punch. 

Benrey decided he had to put a stop to that. It was Tommy’s party, and people were already trying to steal from him barely 10 minutes in. Guess it was partially Tommy’s fault for leaving the punch out in the middle of a table. With a ladle in it.

He made sure to stop everyone who tried taking any, and checked for their identification. Couldn’t have anyone drinking underage. (“But it’s not even alcoholic?” Someone had asked. Benrey had told them off for lying and banned them permanently from the punch bowl. Not that it mattered, they didn’t have the proper identification anyway. What the fuck even was a driver’s license? And why would they need it for punch? He just wanted their passport. Was that too much to ask?)

It was also kind of lonely without Gordon around. Maybe he’d gotten a bit too used to having his company all the time. One of the many side effects of living with him, he supposed.

Speaking of side effects. There were… other side effects to living with Gordon. Like the fact that his small crush had gotten ten times worse and was now a big crush. Like a crush where he has to hide the fact that every time Gordon laughs at one of his jokes or does something cute he has to hold in pink to blue sweet voice.

This was nothing new of course. It’d pretty much been love at first sight with him anyway. But it was a little easier to hide when Gordon hated him. And he could flirt with Gordon with little to no consequences back then! But now, now that Gordon didn’t hate him, and was even a friend at this point, he had something to lose, and that scared him. (Which was saying a lot, Benrey considered himself pretty hard to scare).

Which brings him back to where he is now. Avoiding Gordon by guarding a bowl of punch. To be fair, he wasn’t only doing it to avoid Gordon. Who else was going to guard the punch? Just as he was pondering how to best justify avoiding Gordon, guess who showed up? You’ll never guess. It was Gordon.

“Benrey?” Well shoot. The one guy he was trying to avoid tonight. He couldn’t bring himself to be too mad though. He was just thinking about how much he missed him.

“Yo.” Said Benrey from his spot by the punch bowl. “What’re you uh- doin’ down here? Trying to steal the punch bowl? Well um. You can’t. I’m guarding it.”

Instead of getting mad or annoyed, the usual Gordon reactions to things, he just laughed. “So I heard.”

Fuck. Benrey could feel some pink to blue sweet voice bubbling up inside. He coughed obnoxiously into his fist in an attempt to cover it up. Gordon just laughed again.

“Yeah. Well, as fun as that sounds, I was thinking we could go do something else fun other than guarding the punch bowl. Like um- find Bubby or Coomer? I heard they’re having an intense game of flaming cup pong? Whatever that is?”

“Wh- you want me to come too?” Benrey didn’t know why he was so surprised, but the thought of Gordon actually seeking him out to spend time with him instead of begrudgingly acknowledging his existence when he hung around made him feel some way. He could feel more pink to blue sweet voice fluttering around in his stomach.

“Um, yeah? You’re kind of the whole reason I came to the party anyway. Not well- that sounded weird. I just needed to make sure you’re not causing any trouble. Like by blocking people from having punch or whatever.” Now it was Gordon’s turn to awkwardly cough into his fist.

Unluckily for Benrey, Gordon got really cute when he was embarrassed, and if he didn’t get distracted soon, he might just accidentally announce his love for his enemy turned roommate to the entire building via sweet voice.

“Yeah right this way please let’s go.” So he defaulted to his usual defense mechanism. Ignore it and walk away really fast.

Gordon turned around seeing Benrey suddenly rush past him, leaving his post defending the punch bowl so easily. “Wh! Hey, wait up!”

Gordon had to jog to keep up, and when he finally caught up, he grabbed Benrey’s hand to keep him from running off again. “Man, you’re fast! Jeez!”

Gordon grabbing his hand was the final straw, the feather that broke the camel’s back, the hand hold that made Benrey finally stop holding in all the sweet voice and release it into the air with a high pitched note.

Oops.

—-

Before Gordon could even process being blasted in the face with an overwhelming amount of sweet voice, he heard Benrey shout a “Gotta go bye!” Before promptly phasing right through the nearest wall.

“What.” Said Gordon aloud, to no one.

Despite how annoyed he was (one of the house rules was no sweet voice without permission), he couldn’t help but be a little worried. Was Benrey ok? He had already been acting a little weird. He kept coughing into his hand and all that. Plus, he had run off from Gordon at the beginning of the party, which wasn’t too weird, but Benrey usually followed him around like a lost puppy in public.

And the sweet voice. It was a lot. The main colors were pink to blue, though there were a few other colors there as well. Some red? Green? It looked like a big mess, really. But it was beautiful too. Sweet voice was kind of like that. He almost swore he could still hear the notes when he touched the floating orbs. He could also… feel something? He wasn’t sure how to describe it, but he knew the colors had meanings, and he was sure this one was no different. Because when he touched them, he could feel a warm fuzzy feeling coursing through him, like butterflies in your stomach, that feeling when you see someone and you really, really-

He was interrupted from his thoughts by a loud beeping noise and the sprinklers turning on, promptly dissipating the sweet voice still lingering in the air. 

“Ah! Fuck, what the-“

Tommy appeared at the top of the stairs, looking just as soaked as the rest of them. “Sorry guys! Party’s- party’s over!” He heard an explosion in the distance. He could only assume it was the fault of Bubby.

—-

“It wasn’t my fault!” Bubby shouted as soon as Tommy and Gordon rushed out the front door. Gordon wasn’t sure he believed him, seeing as he was covered in scorch marks and was still smoking. To be fair, so was Dr. Coomer. He’d have to assume it was both their faults.

Tommy sighed. “It’s- it’s ok, Mr. Bubby. It um- it doesn’t matter anyway! The party was almost over.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Gordon asked. “Half your house just got fucking blown up, man.” Gordon may have sounded a bit harsh, but in his defense, he got loud when he was stressed. And half of Tommy’s house being blown up seemed like a fair thing to be stressed about. Speaking of. “Everyone ok?”

He did a quick head count. “Bubby, Dr. Coomer, Tommy…” He sighed. “Where’s Benrey.”

Just then, he heard a voice directly behind him. “Yo.” Gordon jumped.

“Asffsf! Dude! Stop doing that!” At least he was ok. Not that Gordon was worried. Why should he be? He literally couldn’t die.

“Ah! Security chief Boper! I see you survived the blast!” Dr. Coomer gave Benrey a friendly punch on the shoulder.

“Yeah, ow?” He responded.

“Speaking of!” Gordon piped up, “what was that? Did you somehow find an explosive barrel in Gman’s mansion? Because, to be totally honest, I wouldn’t be surprised.” If anyone was going to find an explosive barrel where there shouldn’t be, it was the science team.

“Oh, Gordon! The naivety of someone who has never played flaming cup pong!” Dr. Coomer said, as if that was something he should know.

—-

After an intense story telling of how flaming cup pong led to Gman’s house catching aflame, everyone finally decided to start heading home. Someone had called the fire department, though they were severely disappointed to find there was no house on fire. In fact, there was no house at all. Gordon would be more concerned, but he could swear he saw glowing blue eyes from the bushes. Was the house ever really there to begin with? Just don't think about it, he told himself.

Gordon, for one, was happy to be heading home. He was exhausted, and he didn’t even get to do much before they all had to leave. More so emotionally exhausted, he guessed. Speaking of, Benrey was dragging his feet as they made their way across the lawn to where Gordon was parked. He slowed a bit to match their pace.

“Hey bud, you uh- you ok?” Benrey looked up at him, and he saw fear flash across their face before slipping back to their neutral expression.

“What? Yeah, no. Never better. I’ve got uhhhh loads of cool right now. So cool.” He didn’t look that cool. He looked like he was going to puke.

Gordon placed a hand reassuringly on his shoulder and smiled in a way he hoped helped. “You sure? You can tell me stuff, man. I won’t judge.”

Unfortunately, that just made Benrey look worse, and he coughed into his hand again, though Gordon could see some pink to blue there. He didn’t respond other than some mumbling Gordon couldn’t understand.

“Is this about the sweet voice thing earlier?” Somehow, that made Benrey look worse, and he let out some green to red, shaking his head no.

Gordon grimaced when he reached out to touch that sweet voice, it just felt bad. Like a sense of dread. Oh, hey, that rhymed! Wait, focus Gordon, you’re supposed to be helping your friend.

“Uh, jeez. Listen, you don’t have to tell me. We can just ignore it! I mean, you can talk if you want but- I won’t pry, you know?” That seemed to finally calm him down a bit, and he sighed, relieved.

“You um- you don’t- can’t read it?” Benrey asked, still looking away.

“Pfft, no. Pretty sure the only one who can is Tommy. And I won’t ask if you don’t want me to.” Even if he reaaally wanted to. He wanted to know so bad. Especially now that he knew Benrey was hiding it from him for some reason. But he could respect boundaries. Benrey followed his rules (mostly) so he could follow his.

“Ok.” Benrey smiled, finally looking up at Gordon. “Last person to the car has to scoop Thing’s litter.” He dashed off before Gordon could even process what he said.

“Hey! Cheater!” With that, he rushed after him, smiling too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's funny to remember that Benrey is wearing a Beetlejuice costume this whole time.


	9. Feelings and Nerf Battles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well. Stuff does happen in this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be like, one or two chapters after this and then this fic will be over! I've got a bunch of one shots I wanna do after this, and also another, more serious longfic I've been working on for a bit planned, but I've been holding off on a lot of stuff because I didn't want to get sidetracked and abandon this, haha.   
> Also. I rewrote this chapter like, three times. I had a very difficult time figuring out how I wanted it to play out. I had a plan, wrote it out, and then decided I didn't like any of it and started fresh multiple times. It sucked. But! This is the version I liked the most! There are parts I really like and parts I really dislike, but I hope y'all will like it nonetheless! (:

Gordon was having a very hard time ignoring it. “It” being the sweevoice.

It was almost as if Benrey let it out just about every time Gordon was around. He’d sit next to Benrey on the couch. Pink to blue sweet voice. He’d ruffle his hair before he left to go to bed. Sweet voice. He’d laugh. Sweet voice. Gordon wasn’t sure where the sweet voice came from, but if there was limited supply, it had to be running low. He’d promised he wouldn’t ask about it, but still, Gordon was curious. He was a scientist after all, and Benrey’s sweet voice was fascinating. Benrey in general, really. In a scientific way only, of course. Yeah. 

Another thing? He still hadn’t managed to parse out what that feeling was he’d felt back at the party. So recently, when Benrey would let out a song, he’d reach out and try to feel that feeling again. Usually when Benrey wasn’t looking. Which he sort of felt bad about, but hey, if Benrey didn’t want him to touch the sweet voice then maybe he shouldn’t sing it in his face at every given opportunity.

It had all been good and well until he and Benrey were in the backyard of the boomer house, hiding from Bubby and Coomer as nerf bullets flew across the sky, and he and Benrey were leaning against each other and laughing as Tommy got taken out by Sunkist before he could even land a single shot, and Benrey and him made eye contact, suddenly lost in their own little world. He let out that same tune, and Gordon reached out to touch it, unthinking, before Benrey freaked out and blew a bunch of blue in his face and ran away.

So now Gordon was stuck fighting against Bubby and Coomer alone, and he was not having a great time.

“Fire in the hole!” Shouted Bubby, before unleashing a volley of nerf bullets that were oN FIRE OH MY GOD.

“Bubby! No- no! We said no fire! Fire bad! Fire hurt the Gordon!” He could almost swear he heard Bubby shout “Pussy!” behind him as he dodged to take cover behind a bush. Yeah, maybe it wasn’t the best time to question the reasonings and science behind his alien roommate’s sweet voice™ during the middle of an intense nerf battle with the science team. Why did he always let himself get roped into stuff like this again?

He shot some decidedly not on fire bullets back in Bubby’s general direction, knowing full well Bubby would probably burn them to ashes before they even got close. Dammit! Where was the rest of his team!

Tommy had disappeared with Sunkist, and Benrey had ditched him after he tried touching the sweet voice. He’d thought about going after him, but he was trapped. And going against the force of both Bubby and Dr. Coomer? Alone? He was done for! Not to mention Gman had said he’d be joining too, even though he refused to take the provided nerf gun and hadn’t picked a team. Seriously, weird guy.

A nerf bullet landed inches from his head. “Ah!” He scrambled away in surprise. Dr. Coomer and Bubby weren’t anywhere near him! How-

“Come out come out wherever you are!” Dr. Coomer singsonged. Despite his cheery voice, Gordon couldn’t shake the feeling that this is how he was going to die.

“Why did I agree to this? Why, why!” He whisper-shouted. It was a lot more fun when he had two not-human teammates to help him out. He almost missed his gun arm. He wondered if he could somehow make a prosthetic nerf gun version of it. He laughed despite himself at the thought, but remembered what was going on when another nerf bullet landed near him. Were they getting closer or was there something he was missing? Maybe he was just losing his mind… 

Smacking himself on the head with a “Get it together, Gordon!” he decided to take a chance. If he could make a run for the shed, he’d have a pretty good defense point. Albeit one with little to no escape points, but he was running low on options, ok? Bubby and Dr. Coomer were still searching on the other side of the bush, so they were distracted. Ok, it’s now or never. Three, two-

“Aahhhhhh!!” A valiant battle cry if only his voice hadn’t cracked in the middle, he charged across the field. Or, he would have if he didn’t get hit in the back of the head with a heavy nerf bullet not even five steps from his hiding spot. He toppled to the ground. How? But- Dr. Coomer and Bubby hadn’t been anywhere near him! In the distance he heard a voice.

“Ha… gottem… as the, kids… say.” Gman. But where…? 

Oh. 

How did he even get up there? Gman had positioned himself on the roof of the boomer™ house. He was holding what looked like whatever the nerf equivalent to a sniper rifle would be.

“Dude.” Was Gordon’s only response as he lied in the dirt. “How- why- owww, my head. What happened to nerf battles! Why’s there- what’s with all the-the fire! And the- the fucking sniper rifle!!?! Does this even count as a nerf bullet? You could’ve, like, knocked me out, man!” Next time they did this, he was going to have to enforce more rules; the science team always were good at forgetting he was only human.

“Now, now, Gordon! Fair’s fair! Pay up, my good bitch!” Dr. Coomer’s towering form loomed over him.

“Pay? Pay what? Because I swear to you, I don’t have any more playcoins! I can’t- I can’t reach zero, remember? Did- wait. When did we agree to paying anything?”

“That’ll be five whole dollars.” Bubby replied, instead of answering his question. Okay… he had been expecting something a whole lot worse. “To each of us.” He added. Again, still not bad. That was like, $15. He could do that.

Gordon sighed, running a hand down his face. “Okay, okay. I can do that. Can somebody help me up?” Dr. Coomer kindly reached down and pulled him up.

“I caught you in my big strong arms!” said Dr. Coomer, jovially.

“Sure buddy, sure.” Gordon laughed, “Uh… anyways.” He surveyed the now battle free backyard. There were nerf bullets everywhere, but his teammates were nowhere to be found. “Where’d Tommy and Benrey go? They like, totally dumped me mid-battle.”

——

Inside the boomer™ house, Tommy was taking a rest on the couch. He felt a bit bad leaving Gordon out there with Benrey to fight alone in the nerf battle, but he was thirsty, and Gordon could still rely on Benrey… probably. Besides, Tommy couldn’t be a good teammate if he wasn’t properly hydrated, and there was some freshly made lemonade in the fridge just asking to be drunk. Just after he had settled on the couch, however, he heard someone shout his name.

“TOMMY!” Tommy jumped from his spot on the couch, looking down at the source of the noise. Oh. Benrey’s head was poking out from the floor. He couldn’t see the rest of his body though. Guess Gordon was alone after all.

“Um… Benrey?” He asked, unsure what to say. 

“Tommy!” Benrey shouted, this time with his body half noclipped through the floor. “Hey. It’s ummm- it’s me. What’s up.”

“Um. Nothing,” Tommy responded, shrugging. I’m just- just chilling. I have lemonade! Want any? It’s very sweet. And cold! Colder than a- a winter’s day.” He offered him a glass.

“Yeah totally,” Benrey said, dismissively, not taking the glass. “Listen I um- I need help.” He said as Tommy shuffled over to pull him out of the floor.

“What- what kind of help?” Tommy asked, an incredulous look on his face. Benrey rarely asked for help. Usually he tried to solve things on his own. Tommy was kind of glad he was asking for help, for whatever he needed, because last time he’d tried solving something on his own it’d ended in Benrey growing twenty feet tall and attempting to murder all his friends. Hopefully this problem wasn’t so dire.

Benrey paused to think for a minute, hummed out loud, took a few laps around the room, before finally settling on the couch next to Tommy. “It’s about the sweet voice.” Right now? He hoped Gordon wouldn’t be too mad about being ditched, because it looked like they’d be here a while. Conversations about the sweet voice were never short. No matter how much Tommy studied it, he never could quite understand how it worked. Feelings were like that. They were complicated.

“What about it? You seem to- you seem to have it pretty under control.” Tommy sat next to him and waited for a response patiently. Because he was nice like that.

“Yeah. Yeah I got it suuuper under control. Totes. Awesome. Um. You remember what pink to blue means?” He looked around awkwardly. It was hard enough to admit what it meant to himself. Let alone someone else. Tommy had to think for a bit to remember what pink to blue meant. He’d only seen Benrey use those colors together a few times… 

“Pink to blue… hmmm. It means…” He gasped, finally making the connection. “Benrey! Are you- are you in love with-“

Benrey slapped a hand across Tommy’s mouth muffling what he was about to say, looking left and right nervously. “Shhhhssh! Somebody might hear you!” Tommy looked left and right too. There was no one else in the house but them.

Tommy tried to say something else, but he was still muffled by Benrey’s hand.

“What?” Benrey asked, removing his hand.

“I said are you in love with mister Freeman?” He asked, whispering this time.

Benrey shifted nervously. “Hhrghhhmm maybe. Yeah, no, maybe.” Well, that explained why he’d want to ask while Gordon was otherwise occupied.

“I don’t… I don’t see the problem…” Tommy thought the solution was pretty obvious. In fact, there wasn’t much of a problem in the first place! This was a good thing, great even! “Just tell him? What’s the- what’s the big deal?”

Benrey looked like he hadn’t even considered that option, but quickly remembered why he was here. “The- the- it’s just! It’ll be bad. Real bad. Sure of it.” 

“Why would it be bad?” Tommy asked before he could continue.

“It umm- it just would be? Can’t. He’ll uh- he’ll probably be all mean about it,” he mumbled.

“Why would he be mean? Gordon’s a- he’s a nice guy!” He was almost disappointed that Benrey would think like that, though they had had a bit of a… troubled past. That’s one way to put it, yeah.

Benrey ran his hands down his face, frustrated, before continuing. “Ugh I just know, ok? Listen, can you- I just- need to know how to get it to stop. The sweet voice. ‘S annoying. Don’t want him to know.”

Tommy reached a comforting hand over to Benrey’s shoulder. “Benrey you can’t- you can’t just hold in your emotions. Besides, Gordon can’t- he can’t read it can he?” Gordon was just about the only member of the team who couldn’t use the sweet voice, let alone read it.

“It’s- he can’t- can’t read it but. It’s all… feely and stuff. He can- can touch it, and feel the emotions and it’s-” Benrey groaned and threw his face into a nearby throw pillow. “So embarrassing!” He let out a tune, but the colors were covered up by the pillow. Though Tommy could probably guess what they meant well enough. 

He sighed. While he would like to question Benrey more on his reluctance to tell Gordon his feelings, he decided to pity him a bit. “I can’t- I don’t know how to stop the sweet voice, but- but I can tell you how to solve your problem!”

Benrey peeked out from behind his pillow shield. “Yeah? Tell me?”

“Just tell him!” Tommy smiled sweetly, speaking with a humorous tone, though he really did think that was the best solution.

“Noooouhh! Worst friend. Making’ me- talk about feelings and shit.” Benrey pouted.

“You can’t hide forever, Benrey! Be- besides, I’m sure Gordon won’t be mean about it. I promise.” Before Benrey could respond, another voice entered the room.

“Mean about what?”

——

Benrey hurriedly hid behind his pillow again as the object of his affections entered the room. 

He wasn’t sure why, but being close to Gordon seemed like a bad idea right now. He might accidentally shoot some sweet voice in his face again and, even worse, Gordon might know he has feelings. Couldn’t let that be happening.

“Mean about us- uh- abandoning you mid nerf battle! Sorry- sorry about that, by the way.” Tommy rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling. Gordon didn’t look entirely convinced that was what they were talking about. Actually, he looked very sure that wasn’t what they were talking about, but luckily for both of them, he moved right on to another topic, going on about this and that. Complaining that they abandoned him mid nerf battle, complaining about Bubby almost catching him on fire with flaming nerf bullets. The usual. Benrey wasn’t really listening. He was too busy freaking the fuck out. So. He had to tell Gordon at some point. Or at least, that’s what Tommy told him. And it wasn’t too bad of an idea. But. There was one major problem with this plan: Benrey was really bad at talking. Like, really bad. As evidenced by literally anything he’s ever said.

Luckily for Benrey, he was saved from having to figure out what to say any longer when the rest of the science team entered the room. 

Dr. Coomer entered the room with Bubby in tow. “Gordon, I’m tired!” he announced, moving to stand in front of the couch.

“Heh, me too, man?” Gordon laughed. He has a cute laugh, Benrey thought, and he felt sweet voice wanting to escape and he PUSHED THAT BACK DOWN. Not now!

“You took up the couch.” Bubby stated plainly.

“Our couch now,” replied Benrey, temporarily leaving his pillow shield to stick his tongue out at Bubby.

“The rules of the couch say that seniors get seats first!” Dr. Coomer said, non-threateningly but in a way that definitely had an undertone of threatening-ness to it.

“Sorry,” Bubby added as Gordon and Benrey were shooed down to the floor for Bubby and Coomer to take the seats instead. Bubby didn’t sound very sorry. Nevertheless, Benrey was very happy with this development. He had plenty of room to avoid Gordon and stare at him from afar now! Perfect. Eventually, Tommy turned on a movie. Or, Tommy took the remote and picked a movie, but was bullied into picking another one by Bubby, because “Love Boat the movie is not a real film,” apparently. 

It was hard to pay attention to the movie with so many thoughts on his mind and Gordon sitting right next to him. He wasn’t even sure what movie it was, but every once in a while he would spare a glance at Gordon and Gordon would glance back at him, and he would pretend he wasn’t looking in the first place, and for some reason, it reminded him of a similar situation months ago. It noticeably mirrored when he first came back. When Gordon made dinner for the science team that one night and Benrey apologized. Obviously the situation was much different, and Gordon didn’t hate Benrey anymore and Benrey wasn’t racked with guilt, but still. The parallels were there.

The feeling was similar. There were words bubbling just below the surface of his skin, and though the thought of actually saying them out loud terrified him, Benrey felt like he had to do something or he’d burst. Say something. Do something. Anything. 

Gordon caught his eye again and nudged him with his elbow, raising an eyebrow. Oops. He may have been staring at him a bit too long this time. He mumbled what might have been words and looked back to the movie. Gordon just shrugged and dropped it, and Benrey went back to contemplating what he could possibly do.

Benrey wasn’t very good at talking, that much he knew. He was very good at shapeshifting into horrible abominations imperceivable by the human eye, and he was good at (some) video games. He was good at taking care of Thing, and according to Gordon he was surprisingly good with kids. He was good at making people laugh, and he was really good at making people mad. He was good at making grilled cheese (when he didn’t burn it), and he was not so good at remembering to do the dishes afterwards. 

What to do, what to do. That feeling was still bubbling in his chest. To do something, anything. Just let your feelings go and don’t think. He looked back at Gordon. He was laughing at something that happened in the movie, and Benrey was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that this, right here, was where he wanted to stay forever. 

But then, nothing would change, and he’d have to keep his feelings locked up, and start hiding the sweet voice again, and maybe… maybe Gordon knowing wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. If he liked him back. Change didn’t always have to be bad. He’d changed, after all, to become the person he was today. Changed to be good.

He always had been more of a “do then think” guy than a “think then do” guy, so he did the first thing that came to mind, and without thinking, he leaned in to give Gordon a kiss on the cheek. It was just a kiss on the cheek. He kissed Tommy on the cheek sometimes. If it went bad, then it was just a friend kiss. Simple! 

But then Gordon turned his head, and Benrey’s kiss on the check was suddenly a kiss on the mouth, and suddenly that was a lot more than he’d expected, and he pulled away immediately, letting out a string of green to red sweet voice, mixed with red to blue and a bunch of other colors and feelings, and suddenly the room felt too quiet, and Gordon was staring at him, face red and-

Actually, fuck this, thought Benrey, and he noclipped through the floor and ran, because what else was he supposed to do? Face his fears and talk about it? Hell no!


End file.
